It was one of the coldest winters the region has experienced: in the year 763, large areas of the Black Sea froze, and icebergs were seen in the Bosphorus. Contemporary historians recorded this unusual weather phenomenon during the winter of 763/764 in their accounts of Constantinople, now Istanbul. Now, an international and interdisciplinary study conducted […]
Volcanoes
Posted inClassical Archaeology
Villa Where Emperor Augustus Passed Away Unearthed at Somma Vesuviana
Archaeologists from the University of Tokyo have found on the northern slopes of Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy, part of a building that could have been the villa of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Through radiocarbon dating and physicochemical analysis of the volcanic rock covering the building, it has been demonstrated that it was in […]
Posted inScience
Giant Volcano with Glacial Ice that May Have Harbored Life Discovered on Mars
In a remarkable discovery announced at a recent conference in Texas, scientists have uncovered a colossal volcano and a potential buried ice sheet on Mars, hidden in plain sight for decades in one of the planet’s most iconic regions. The volcano, provisionally named “Noctis volcano,” is located near the equator and has been captured in […]
Posted inScience
The Largest Underwater Volcanic Eruption in History, 7300 Years Ago in Japan, Created a Caldera the Size of a Capital City
A team of geoscientists from Kobe University recently uncovered evidence that a massive volcanic eruption that took place 7,300 years ago in southern Japan was the largest eruption to occur on Earth within the past 11,700 years. Their findings shed new light on mega-eruption dynamics and the influential role volcanoes have played in Earth’s climate […]
Posted inScience
Evidence of Ancient Volcanic Eruption Six Times Larger than the One that Caused the Fall of the Minoan Civilization Found on Santorini
An international expedition led by Dr. Steffen Kutterolf of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has found evidence of one of the largest eruptions ever recorded in southern Aegean Arc of Greece. The expedition was conducted aboard the JOIDES Resolution research vessel as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The Greek island […]
Posted inClassical Archaeology
The Residence of the Prefect of the Roman Tyrrhenian Fleet, from where Pliny the Elder would have seen the Vesuvius Eruption, uncovered
In an area already protected by ministerial archaeological restrictions due to the density of ancient testimonies scattered around Punta Sarparella, in Bacoli, from the entrance to the Roman theater of Misenum, passing through the sacellum of the Augustales, to the inner basin of the ancient port, an archaeological discovery of excepcional importance has been made. […]
Posted inScience, Travel
Kawah Ijen Volcano’s Spectacular Blue Eruptions
When we talk about volcanoes, two things come to mind: one, the conical-shaped mountain they often take on; and two, the incandescent lava. The latter is immediately associated with its intense red color, especially spectacular at night. However, there are sometimes exceptions to that hue, and in Indonesia, probably the rarest eruption of all occurs, […]
