VESUVIUS is sinking, making the kind of eruption that buried Pompeii in AD 79 less likely, according to Andrea Borgia from the European Development and Research Agency in Rome, and his colleagues.
The slumbering volcano, which last erupted in 1944, sits on a layer of sediment. “The volcano is sinking into the sediments,” says Borgia. Satellite radar measurements of the volcano’s height show the central cone is sinking at a rate of 1 to 2 millimetres per year, while an arc-shaped ridge is rising up at the foot of the slopes. Borgia says these features, and fissures that have appeared…
