Vesuvius

Trademarks were known in ancient civilizations. Wine jars found in Pompeii bore the mark Vesuvinum, identifying their contents as a wine produced in the region of Vesuvius. The artisan s guilds of Europe adopted marks to identify merchandise originating with their members such marks were protected against falsification by penal laws. 

The enthalpy of decomposition, which is rather low compared with criterion C, in the CHETAH programme (see p.117), was determined by DSC and corresponds to 0.76 KJ/g at 230-260°C. In a confined atmosphere the decomposition conditions would be explosive. This reaction has been used many times because of its spectacular aspect. This is why it is called Vesuvius fire by artificers and green volcano by lecturers. These demonstrations should be stopped because of the detonation risks they represent as well as chromium (III) oxide toxicity. 

Data on mineral s arates in present day volcanic rocks. Since every dating method (including the K-Ar or C systems) can be affected by several geochemical perturbations which may lead to erroneous ages, the best test for the °Th- U mineral isochrons consists in the analysis of presently erupted lavas or historic lavas of well known eruption dates. Rather surprisingly the data obtained on such samples are not so numerous (some examples are illustrated in Fig. 10). Early data showed that, in some cases, there were interlaboratory analytical discrepancies, especially in Th isotope ratios measured on mineral separates extracted from the same lava flows (this was the case for the 1971 lava from Mt. Etna and 1944 lava from Mt. Vesuvius Capaldi and Pece 1981 Hemond and Condomines 1985 Capaldi et al. 1985). This emphasizes the fact that °Th- U mineral analyses... 

It should be noted that, even when good U-Th mineral isochrons indicate old crystallization ages, Ra- Th disequilibria can be found in minerals, groundmass and whole rocks. It is the case for Mt. St Helens and Mt. Shasta (Volpe et al. 1991, 1992) and Vesuvius (Black et al. 1998) (see Fig. 10c,d) this requires either a selective Ra enrichment in the magma shortly before eruption accompanied by further crystallization... 

Capaldi G, Cortini M, Pece R (1982) Th isotopes at Vesuvius evidence for open-system behavior of magma-forming processes. J Volcanol Geotherm Res 14 247-260 Capaldi G, Cortini M, Pece R (1983) U and Th decay-series disequilibria in historical lavas from the Eolian islands, Tyrrhenian Sea. Isot Geosci 1 39-55... 

E.-F. GeofEroy stated that sal ammoniac, because of its volatility and die manner in which it used to be prepared, was often called the heavenly eagle, the flying lUtle bird, die solar salt, or die mercurial soot (43). Herman Boerhaave believed diat, since Vesuvius and other volcanoes eject sal ammoniac, it is therefore necessary to class this salt with die fossils, although it is believed that that which is now being brought to us is an animal production (75). By die word fossil Boerhaave and his contemporaries meant a mineral, or substance dug from the earth. 

On April 18, 1821, he was elected to membership in the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In the same year he published some analyses of cyanite from St. Gotthard and Roras and nepheline and sodalite from Vesuvius (13). In 1822 he published analyses of cinnamon stone, chrysoberyl, and boracite (14). He found the cinnamon stone which Berzelius had brought back from Vermland to be a calcium aluminum iron silicate and regarded it as a true garnet like the one from Ceylon which Klaproth had analyzed. 

Arfwedson, J. A., Analys af mei onit dioctaedre och af leucit fran Vesuvius, ... 

In 1881 L. Palmieri thought he detected helium in a yellow amorphous sublimation product from Vesuvius. When he heated it in the Bunsen flame, he was able to observe the D3 spectroscopic line with a wave length of 5875 Angstrom units (69, TO). Although R. Nasini and F. Anderlini were unable in 1906 to produce this line by similarly heating minerals known to contain helium, they believed that, if the helium in Palmieri s mineral was bound endothermally, he might possibly have observed its spectrum in this manner (69, 71). 

Since Ramsay and Travers discovered neon in the most volatile portion of their argon (69), this immediately established the occurrence of neon in the atmosphere. In 1909 Armand Gautier showed that the fumaroles of Vesuvius and the gas which bubbled from the hot springs in an old crater at Agnano, near Naples, contained neon (69, 77). 

The Romans pioneered the use of hydraulic, or water-cured, cement. Its unique chemical and physical properties produced a material so lasting that it stands today in magnificent stmctures like the Pantheon. Yet the formula was forgotten in the first few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire and wasn t rediscovered until 1824 as Portland cement. One Roman version was based on a burned mixture of two major components volcanic ash—called pozzolana—from Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii and nearby towns in... 

Figure 12.10. Phase contrast photomicrograph of hematite from Vesuvius in Italy. Straight steps crossing curved growth steps, which have appeared due to the movement of dislocations after the cessation of growth [8], are shown.

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