Volcanoes

As I prepared today's chicken & vegetable pie, I  had the radio on. The programme was "Book of the Week: Vesuvius: the Most Famous Volcano in the World".  I found myself thinking of volcanoes I have known.

I suppose I'd seen volcanoes on TV or in films from an early age but these had no real meaning for me. I had never seen one, not the reality of one.


At school, while studying Latin, I read Pliny's account of Vesuvius exploding. Dramatic indeed. Terrifying certainly for those people then, who had no scientific basis to explain what was happening. Devastating too. Just look at the ruins of Pompeii or of Herculaneum. But still volcanoes remained distant objects. 

As I grew older I saw extinct volcanoes. So I climbed Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, & various Lakeland fells. But, to me, these remained hills, mountains, not volcanoes.


No, the first time volcanoes, & what they can do, really impinged upon me was when we went to Tenerife. At a talk in the hotel we were told that Mt Tiede is expected to erupt again before so long & when it did the tidal wave would swamp Florida. Then the power began to dawn on me. We went a drive around the mountain, saw the other worldliness of the terrain carved out by various eruptions over the centuries.

After that I once more went back to extinct volcanoes, or at least dormant ones. PD, our friend at the Pub, is an ex-geography & sport teacher. He's passionate about geology & how the land is formed. He explained one time at the Pub about how you can recognise the shape of a volcano. So, when we went on our second trip to Australia, up towards Port Stephen, north New South Wales, I was very aware of how many volcanic cones were around us. None showed signs of life I'm glad to say. 


The first time I really saw signs of volcanic life was when we visited Soufriere on St Lucia. There you can drive into the basin of the volcano. You see the steam seeping out of the earth. You are advised not to walk on parts a ground beneath is so hot. You smell the rotten eggs of the sulphur.

Just outside Soufriere

 

 

Our next volcano was Vesuvius once more as we stayed in Pompei. Even today Pompei is dominated by Vesuvius. Wherever you look it's capless cone seems to be. At the time I read Robert Harris' novel of Pompeii & his vivid account of that eruption Pliny had written about so long ago. I had come full circle.
 
Now, as I write, I find myself wondering if Vesuvius is the most famous volcano. Certainly in the western world it is, but what about other parts of the world. How does Krakatoa rate? Or Mt Fuji? I assume from it's shape the latter is a volcano. (I still remember PD's lecture on the matter so know what shape to look out for.) I wonder.