Erupting Gallery

Painted Murals And Frescoes Inside A Room At The Ancient Roman Ruins At Herculaneum (Ercolano), Campania, Italy

Located in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum (Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in 79 AD. Its ruins are located in the commune of Ercolano, Campania, Italy.
As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is famous as one of the few ancient cities that can now be seen in much of its original splendour, as well as for having been lost, along with Pompeii, Stabiae, Oplontis and Boscoreale, in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 that buried it. Unlike Pompeii, the deep pyroclastic material which covered it preserved wooden and other organic-based objects such as roofs, beds, doors, food and even some 300 skeletons which were surprisingly discovered in recent years along the seashore as it was thought until then that the town had been evacuated by the inhabitants.
Herculaneum was a wealthier town than Pompeii, possessing an extraordinary density of fine houses with, for example, far more lavish use of coloured marble cladding

© :: Artie | Photography ::

Solar activity, SDO image C023/8088

Solar activity, SDO image. Coloured image of the surface of the Sun, showing one of an unusual series of eruptions that led to a series of fast puffs, which forced the slow ejection of a massive burst of solar plasma from the Sun's corona (outermost atmosphere). The puffs occurred roughly once every three hours. After around 12 hours, a much larger eruption of material began. Data, including that used to create this image, enabled scientists to conclude that the source of the puffs was a series of energetic jets and related flares - localised catastrophic releases of energy that spew material out from the Sun, into space. Imaged by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in three wavelengths of light, on 17th January 2013

© Alzate/SDO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Coastline of the Bay of Naples from the ancient Roman town of Baiae, Cape Miseno, with Vesuvius in the distance (litho)

5997044 Coastline of the Bay of Naples from the ancient Roman town of Baiae, Cape Miseno, with Vesuvius in the distance (litho) by German School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Coastline of the Bay of Naples from the ancient Roman town of Baiae, Cape Miseno, with Vesuvius in the distance. Illustration from El Mundo Ilustrado Biblioteca de Las Familias (The Illustrated World Library of Families) (Biblioteca Ilustrada de Espasa Hermanos, Barcelona, c1880).); © Look and Learn

© © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images