Dear Friends: There are half a dozen volcanic caldera around the planet that have the potential to do great damage to civilization. The biggest of these is Mount Tambora in Indonesia which about 70,000 years ago almost wiped out the entire human race. (We hung on by the skin of our teeth as the population dropped to about a thousand people living in what is now South Africa.)
The second biggest is the Yellowstone caldera which is almost as big and would destroy the continental United States in short order.
One of the others is a bad boy that sits under the suburban sprawl of greater Naples atop a massive volcanic caldera (Including Vesuvius) that may be poised to erupt at any time according to scientists and geologists.
Seen from mountaintop monastery Hermitage dei Camaldoli, the suburban sprawl of greater Naples sits atop a massive volcanic caldera that may be poised to erupt. Posillipo Hill, the dark ridge on the left, is part of the wall of the caldera, which stretches 12 kilometers across.
To understand why Campi Flegrei poses such an unpredictable and enigmatic risk requires a removed vantage point and a history lesson. Or, as Antonio Costa, an expert on the formation of calderas tells me, “Without geological history, you cannot know the current situation.” So, after spending a few days with Chiodini and De Natale, Scholz and I join Costa and volcanologist Roberto Isaia at a mountaintop monastery with a view of the caldera and its surroundings.
Near the back of the grounds, a stone terrace opens to the stunning vista of a semicircular valley composed of visible craters in its center — remnants of the caldera’s 70 “small” eruptions in the past 15,000 years — and beyond that the deep blue water of the Gulf of Naples.
As Costa unrolls a topographical map of what we’re looking at, Isaia becomes animated. His fingers trace the ridge of Posillipo Hill, arcing into the ocean where the island of Ischia sits opposite us. Then he traces a line from the other side of the valley, completing an 13-kilometer-wide oval. “That,” he says, “is the volcano.”
The sprawling, disorganized, traffic-bound mess in the middle is teeming with people. We can see Stadio San Paolo, the third-largest stadium in Italy, with a capacity of 60,000. The observatory is somewhere in there, too.
“A new eruption could happen anywhere down there,” says Costa.
The second biggest is the Yellowstone caldera which is almost as big and would destroy the continental United States in short order.
One of the others is a bad boy that sits under the suburban sprawl of greater Naples atop a massive volcanic caldera (Including Vesuvius) that may be poised to erupt at any time according to scientists and geologists.
If it erupts, an event some researchers feel is increasingly likely, it could be catastrophic for Italy’s third-largest municipality (Naples) and the surrounding countryside. Disruptions could stretch far beyond Italy, too, affecting everything from air travel to agriculture, with ash darkening the skies over Europe and the Mediterranean.Just 10 kilometers from the frenetic pulse of central Naples, in stark contrast to the Italian city’s impressive volcanic-stone churches and effortlessly stylish urbanites, sits a boxy, concrete building. Inside this unremarkable government outpost, accessed through a pair of sliding glass doors, is the Vesuvius Observatory monitoring room, lit by the cool glow of 92 flat-panel screens. On each screen, volcanic activity readings, including those from seismic devices sensitive enough to pick up a passing bus, blink and beep in real time. In the middle of the room is a desk. And in the middle of that desk is a single red phone.
Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, there are at least two people in the room, ready to pick up the phone and advise the national civilian defense in the event of a volcanic emergency.
But Mount Vesuvius, its iconic cone rising conspicuously on the city’s eastern flank, is not the only concern. A potentially even more destructive volcanic giant is tossing fitfully in its sleep, right on Naples’ doorstep: the caldera of the massive volcano system Campi Flegrei, which translates to the fields of fire.
To understand why Campi Flegrei poses such an unpredictable and enigmatic risk requires a removed vantage point and a history lesson. Or, as Antonio Costa, an expert on the formation of calderas tells me, “Without geological history, you cannot know the current situation.” So, after spending a few days with Chiodini and De Natale, Scholz and I join Costa and volcanologist Roberto Isaia at a mountaintop monastery with a view of the caldera and its surroundings.
Near the back of the grounds, a stone terrace opens to the stunning vista of a semicircular valley composed of visible craters in its center — remnants of the caldera’s 70 “small” eruptions in the past 15,000 years — and beyond that the deep blue water of the Gulf of Naples.
As Costa unrolls a topographical map of what we’re looking at, Isaia becomes animated. His fingers trace the ridge of Posillipo Hill, arcing into the ocean where the island of Ischia sits opposite us. Then he traces a line from the other side of the valley, completing an 13-kilometer-wide oval. “That,” he says, “is the volcano.”
The sprawling, disorganized, traffic-bound mess in the middle is teeming with people. We can see Stadio San Paolo, the third-largest stadium in Italy, with a capacity of 60,000. The observatory is somewhere in there, too.
“A new eruption could happen anywhere down there,” says Costa.
(Just bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your............!)
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