alt Hacker Newsiirc, Pompeii was a pyroclastic flow [0], a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter with speeds between 100-700 km/hr and temperatures up to 1000°C. So, probably something like that, but a lot bigger, faster, and arriving faster from further away.
I was surprised how long the camera lasted getting buried. It'd be a not good end.
Replies
fsckboy • last Sunday at 3:03 AM
i just posted a sister comment to yours about the Mt St Helens explosion, with a picture from 1980, and then i noticed that they are calling (it's a non technical article) what rained down in the photograph onto the camera and photographer "pyroclastic flow" and it looks very similar to what happened here.
➕ show 2 replies
asdfman123 • last Sunday at 3:34 AM
Yeah, they likely saw it racing down the mountain and then met their doom fairly immediately.
Just to add, there are two main categories of volcanism, shield volcanoes (hot spots, mid ocean ridges) and stratovolcanoes (continental and subduction zone volcanoes). Hawaii is the first kind ("tourist friendly"), Vesuvius at Pompeii is the latter kind (not friendly). The main difference is the silica content, the stratovolcano lava is sticky and viscous; it gets stuck and things get explosive and nasty.
We have a lot of stratovolcanoes around the pacific rim so it's eruptions like those that we should compare with Pompeii, and not really Hawaii.
The two categories also produce, in general, different kinds of rock.