Pompeii Pair Survived Eruption. Then Came the Quakes

Scientists can now definitively say they have the first physical evidence that deadly earthquakes accompanied the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Last year, scientists announced they'd discovered the skeletons of two men who appeared to have been crushed to death. They brought in experts in fields including archaeoseismology, the study of ancient quakes through archaeological evidence, to get the best idea of what happened. The resulting study, published in Frontiers in Earth Science, suggests the men survived the initial eruption, during which pumice stones rained down over 18 hours, but were killed in a subsequent earthquake before a flow of ash and debris preserved their remains.

"This is a very complex task, to recognize the effects of the earthquake during an eruption, because both phenomena can happen in succession, or concurrently," study author Dr. Domenico Sparice, a volcanologist at the Vesuvius Observatory in Naples, tells the Washington Post. "It is like a jigsaw puzzle, in which all the pieces must fit together." That tremors rocked the area is no shock. Pliny the Younger, a Roman magistrate who experienced the eruption from across the Bay of Naples, left behind an account of quakes "so intense that everything seemed not only to be shaken but overturning." But the bodies, with bone fractures like those observed in other earthquake victims, are the first physical evidence in support of the account, the New York Times reports.

One man, whose legs were buried under a fragment of collapsed wall, appeared to be protecting his head. Though pumice stones were found under the fragments of wall, researchers determined the weight of the rocks didn't trigger the collapse. Rather, in comparing the damage to the seismic destruction of other historical buildings, they found the wall had fallen on top of the men as a result of a strong earthquake. Sparice notes the deaths of other Pompeii victims have likely been wrongly attributed to volcanic activity as opposed to earthquakes. Now, with the first input from archaeoseismologists at Pompeii, researchers will know the signs to look for in seeking out other earthquake deaths, he tells the Times. (More Pompeii stories.)