Download MS-SCI-ES-Unit 2 -- Interdisciplinary Exploration

Which ancient city ...
• was destroyed in one day?
• lay buried for centuries?
• is a window on ancient Roman life?
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the city of Pompeii prospered
on the fertile slopes near the volcano Vesuvius. About
100 kilometers north of Pompeii was the city of Rome.
Pompeii was a small but popular trading center and
site for luxury Roman villas. When Vesuvius erupted
violently in A.D. 79, thousands of Pompeians were
caught unawares. Ash, hot gases, and rocks trapped
and preserved this ancient city and its inhabitants.
Today, excavations at Pompeii reveal the daily life of a
bustling city at the height of the Roman Empire.
Ancient Italy in
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244.
A.D.
79
The Forum
Mount Vesuvius looms
behind the ruins of
the Forum at Pompeii.
~
Daily Life in Pompeii
Fresco From Pompeii
This fresco portrays an educated couple.
Here the wife holds a stylus and wax
tablet, and the husband holds a scroll.
Excavations at Pompeii began in the mid-1700s and
continue today. The findings have been astounding.
Life stopped abruptly that fateful day. Thousands
abandoned their meals or left food simmering on
the fire. A baker had just placed the day's round
loaves of bread in the oven. A jeweler left his work
unfinished on a bench. Houses and public buildings
that remained intact reveal daily life through
frescoes (wall paintings), sculpture, mosaic floors,
and expansive indoor courtyards.
At the center of city life was the Forum, a
large, rectangular open space where Pompeians
conducted business and politics. Here people sold
meat and fish as well as fruits, vegetables, grapes,
and olives grown on the fertile slopes of Vesuvius.
Some merchants sold cloth made from the wool of
sheep raised nearby. Others sold copper pots, oil
lamps, furniture, and glassware. People of all classes
gathered at the Forum to exchange ideas, notices,
and gossip. Some even wrote graffiti on the walls!
Bakery and Bread
This fresco, found in Pompeii, shows a man
purchasing bread. A carbonized loaf of bread,
below, indicates how bread was cut into wedges.
The Forum was central to life in Pompeii.
Research another structure in Pompeii. Write
a short report that describes its structure and
function. Explain the building's importance
to Roman society. Possible topics include
• amphitheater
• city walls
• temples
• basilica
• public baths
Vesuvius Erupts!
Most volcanoes and earthquakes occur along
plate boundaries, where Earth's crust is
fractured and weak. Unknown to the people
of Pompeii, their city and surrounding areas
rested directly over a subduction zone, where
the Eurasian plate meets the African plate.
Although Mount Vesuvius had erupted in
the past, the volcano had lain dormant for
hundreds of years.
Around noon on August 24, A.D. 79, the
volcano suddenly exploded. Volcanic ash and
gases shot 27 kilometers into the air. During
the rest of the day and into the night, 3 meters
of ash blanketed the city. But the destruction
wasn't over. Around midnight, a deadly
pyroclastic flow poured over the entire area,
trapping about 2,000 Pompeians who had not
yet escaped. Afterward, an additional 3 meters
of volcanic debris rained down on Pompeii. This
layer of material sealed the city, preserving it
nearly intact for centuries.
~
A
The Great Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
This eighteenth-century painting is by Louis-Jean Desprez.
~~
Vesuvius. A column of
pumice and ash rises.
Pumice and ash blow
southeast and fall on
Pompeii.
The column of
ash collapses and
pyroclastic flows
cover the region.
~
Different kinds of lava vary in silica content and
temperature and therefore spread at different
rates. Use molasses to model lava flow rates.
1. Measure one tablespoon of molasses and
slowly pour it onto a plastic plate. Time and
record how long it takes for the molasses to
stop spreading.
2. Add one tablespoon of sand to one tablespoon
of molasses. Stir the mixture thoroughly.
Repeat the pouring and timing of Step 1.
How does the sand affect the molasses' rate
of flow? What does the sand represent in your
model? How would a volcano with this type of
lava be likely to erupt?
3. Heat one tablespoon of molasses over a hot
plate. Repeat Step 1. How does the rate of
flow of the heated molasses compare with
that of the molasses in Step 1? What can you
conclude about the effect of temperature on
the flow rate of lava?
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Language Arts
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Eyewitness Account
~
Pliny the Younger (around A.D. 62-113) was a nephew
of the scholar and historian Pliny the Elder. When he
was about 17 years old, he witnessed the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius while visiting a city across the bay from
Pompeii. Some 25 years later, Pliny the Younger described
the terrifying scene in a letter to the historian Tacitus.
Excerpt from Pliny the Younger's
letter to Tacitus, about A.D. 104
I look back: a dense cloud looms
behind us, following us like a flood poured
across the land .... A darkness came that
was not like a moonless or cloudy night,
but more like the black of closed and
unlighted rooms. You could hear women
lamenting, children crying, men shouting.
Some were calling for parents, others for
children or spouses .... There were some
so afraid of death that they prayed for
death .... It grew lighter, though that
seemed not a return of day, but a sign that
the fire was approaching. The fire itself
actually stopped some distance away, but
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darkness and ashes came
again, a great weight of them.
• Pliny the Younger
We stood up and shook the
ash off again and again, otherwise
we would have been covered with
it and crushed by the weight ....
At last the cloud thinned out and
dwindled to no more than smoke or fog.
Soon there was real daylight. The sun was
even shining, though with the lurid glow it
has after an eclipse. The sight that met our
still terrified eyes was a changed world,
buried in ash like snow.
II
An eyewitness account is a firsthand,
factual account of an event or
experience. Pliny the Younger filled his
letter with vivid sensory details-details
that help the reader see, feel, smell,
taste, and hear-in order to convey what
the Vesuvius eruption was like.
Choose an interesting event that you've
witnessed. Write an eyewitness account
of it. Provide readers with key facts, such
as the time and place of the event, along
with interesting and vivid details.
Dog at Pompeii
This is a plaster cast of a dog
left chained to a post during
the eruption of Vesuvius.
·-·""'t····-\;·f'.'. .
Chapter 4
Plate Tectonics
Earth's plates are large pieces of the lithosphere
that move slowly, producing faults, mountain
ranges, volcanoes, and deep-ocean trenches.
~ What causes convection currents in
~
Earth's mantle?
~ What was Alfred Wegener's hypothesis about
the continents?
A
~ What is the process of sea-floor spreading?
~ What are the three types of plate boundaries?
-'*
Chapter 5
Earthquakes
E
Platecmotions produce stress in Earth's crust that
leads to faults, mountain building, and earthquakes.
~
~ What
land features result from the forces of
plate movement?
~ How does the energy of an earthquake travel
through Earth?
What kinds of damage does an earthquake
cause?
Chapter 6
Volcanoes
.
~~-
.
Volcanic eruptions result from plate motions and
produce landforms such as volcanic mountains
and lava plateaus.
Where are most of Earth's volcanoes found?
What happens when a volcano erupts?
What landforms do lava and ash create?
~-
A junction is a point where things come together.
At the Mendocino Triple Junction, three of Earth's 1sooN
plates come together off the coast of northern
California.
As you can see in the map, the triple junction
marks one end of the San Andreas fault. The Pacific
plate slides north along the fault until it reaches the
junction. There, the Pacific plate twists to the west.
But north of the junction, the Gorda plate pushes
east and collides with the North American plate. This
collision forms a subduction zone.
~- Why is the Mendocino Triple Junction imporMendocin
1b
Triple
tant? Plate movements around the junction cause
Junctio
earthquakes and volcanoes.
130° W
125°W
Strong earthquakes occur as the Gorda plate
Key
sinks beneath the North American plate. Many
~
earthquakes also happen along the boundary of the
.._.
Gorda and Pacific plates and along the San Andreas fault.
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Huge active volcanoes-Mount Shasta and Lassen Peakhave formed through subduction of the Gorda plate.
Geologists have also detected volcanic activ.i ty in the ocean
along the western edge of the Gorda plate. '
"
.,_
1. What type of plate boundary is found
where the Gorda Plate meets the North
American Plate? (Chapter 4)
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a. colliding
c. sliding
2. What type of fault is the San Andreas
fault? (Chapter 5)
a. tension
c. reverse
A+-
-~
b. spreading
d. uplifting
b. normal
d. strike-slip
Direction of plate motion
Spreading boundary
Colliding boundary
Sliding boundary
Volcano
3. What caused the volcanic activity along
the western edge of the Gorda plate?
(Hint: Look at the map to see the type
of plate boundary there.) (Chapter 6)
a. lava erupting from a deep-ocean
trench
b. magma forming above a subducting
plate
c. lava erupting from a mid-ocean ridge
d. plates moving over a hot spot
4. Summary Write a paragraph summarizing plate movements at the Mendocino
Triple Junction and the effects of those
plate movements on the geology of
northern California.
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