Vesuvius Definition

The Volcano of Vesuvius, also known simply as Vesuvius, is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It comprises the large cone of Somma, which may be the ancestral cone, with a 4-kilometre-wide (2.5 mi) summit caldera with the new cone of Vesuvio within it. The most catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius occurred in AD 79, when the city of Pompeii was buried under metres of ash and pumice and many lives were lost. Vesuvius is one of several volcanoes that form the Campanian volcanic arc, a continental-type arc formed by the subduction of the African Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the past hundred years, with its most recent eruption in 1944.