Figure 10

The massive 1872 eruption of the Vesuvius, the only active volcanoe in mainland Europe (Italy). Vesuvius is most famous for the 79 A. D. eruption that destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Plate tectonics is the major cause for these violent eruptions, which document ongoing magmatic processes driven by heat from the radioactive decay within the Earth [adapted from an anonymous painting, ca. 1880].