Tony Taft, our Reviewer and Photographer writes
Today we had an attendance of 15 with 8 apologies, we had no new members or guests, this has been the lowest attendance this year.
Our speaker today was Professor Peter Edwards, and his talk was entitled Cataclysmic Italy.
Peter started his talk on the subject of Plate Tectonics, Mantle Convection, Sea floor spreading and Continental drift, quite a lot to get your head around.
Peter showed us a slide of a huge continent called Pangea that existed 235 million years ago, and over the years since, this super continent started to break up and drift apart, if you look at a map it looks like the continents now look like pieces of a jig saw puzzle that could be fitted together.
We all live on continental plates that are constantly on the move albeit very slowly, and when two plates moving in opposite directions meet you get rubbing and this rubbing is what can cause earth quakes and volcanic activity, Peter explained that Italy is just such a place.
We were shown pictures of Mount Versuvius an active volcano sleeping today, but it was the cause of the demise of Pompeii when in such an eruption, volcanic ash completely covered the city killing all it’s people.
There has been 930 earthquakes above 4.5 on the Richter scale since 1900 and 265 Above 4.5 since the year 2000.
Peter questioned the sense in building large city’s and villages so close to a volcano, but it is thought that because the volcanic ash can make the soil very fertile, which is perfect if you want to grow grapes for the production of wine, that this was considered to be a good reason to take the risk.
Naples is a large bustling city built almost on the slopes of Versuvius, and although all of the active volcanoes are monitored Peter said it is impossible to predict exactly when a volcano is going to erupt, Peter said he would not want to live there, and when he visited he felt uncomfortable.
There are three volcanoes that are still considered active, they are Versuvius that last erupted in 1944,
Mount Etna in Sicily, and mount Stromboli in the Aeolian islands that last erupted in 1888-1890.
Peter gave us a wonderful talk, and explained everything so carefully and with the aid of his excellent visual presentation, we all enjoyed listening to his every word, he clearly has a vast knowledge on the subject and has many more talks in his head for a future date, we look forward to that day.
Questions were asked and Peter did his best to answer them.
Footnote by Websec Tony:- Peter has this wonderful website for all to see https://italianreflections.wordpress.com which has lots of info for potential visits to Italy.
The first item on the site https://italianreflections.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/trains-tracks-and-stations/ looks particularly interesting for getting around Italy. I must get around to studying it soon.
Paignton Probus Club 