Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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 0 0 244. 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? ·+· Language Arts . . . . . . . . . , _ _ . . ._ _.....,..~....... ~~~P.i.~'lt:·'tf,~ 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 II -f.- +- .__ 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. -• 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) + 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. • 249