First eyewitness account of an explosive eruption (Pliny the Younger and Vesuvius)
Primera descripción de una erupción explosiva (Plinio el Joven y el Vesubio)
- Date
- 79 (cartas de c. 106) · confidence medium
- Place
- Misenum and Vesuvius, Campania, Italy
- Credited to
- Pliny the Younger
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
In two letters to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger described from Misenum the pine-shaped eruption column, the rain of pumice and ash and the tremors of the Vesuvius eruption in which his uncle died. His account gave its name to 'Plinian' eruptions.
The traditional date (24 August) is disputed: a charcoal inscription found at Pompeii in 2018 points to October. The letters were written some 25 years after the events.
What it led to
- eruption typology and the term 'Plinian'
- excavation and volcanological study of Pompeii and Herculaneum
- a descriptive tradition leading to the Vesuvius Observatory