Minerals from VESUVIO, Italy

Vesuvio (Vesuvius) is probably the most famous volcano on Earth, and certainly one of the most dangerous. It's very famous for having produced the first eruption of which an eyewitness account is preserved (by Plinio "the old"), in AD 79 and that destroied completely the large cities of Ercolano and Pompei. Geologically, Vesuvio is particular for its unusual versatility, its activity ranging from Hawaiian-style emission of very liquid lava, fountaining and lava lakes, over Strombolian and Vulcanian activity to violently explosive, Plinian events that produce pyroclastic flows and surges.
	Despite to such dangerous characteristics, a dense population lives close to it, building houses and villas higher and higher up its slopes. Half a million people live in a near-continuous belt of towns and villages around the volcano, in the zone immediately threatened by future eruptions. The situation is still more peculiar as Vesuvio is not the only volcano in that area since there is, on the other side of the city of Napoli (Naples), the caldera of Campi Flegrei, renowned for some cataclysmic ash-flow forming eruptions in the all-too-recent geologic past and signs of unrest during the past three decades. There is also the historically active volcanic complex of Ischia (world famous for the hot-water and the Thermae) , not threatening to Vesuvio inhabitants but to those on Ischia island itself. To complete this ensemble of geologic hazards, the area forms the nucleus of a much vaster zone that is seismically vulnerable; its most recent disastrous earthquake, on 23 November 1980, killed more than 3,000 people.
The most known eruption of major dimensions was that of August 79 A.D. which destroied the Roman towns of Pompei and Ercolano, a drama directly described by Plinio "the old" and that has inspired the phantasy of generations of poets, philosophers and scientists. A lot of other eruptions took place destrying and killing hundreds of people. Some among the most recent have been photographed. The last one took place during the World War II, in 1944. The pinnakle of ashes, gasses and lapilli was more or less 2 km high during the 1944 eruption Now Vesuvio is "resting", no signs of activity, no emissions. This sort of "silence" might last some years or centuries. But ... in case it wakes up again... what might happen ?	Eruption of 1872 Eruption of 1906 The incredible show of the Vesuvio in the night, during the 1944 eruption
The Vesuvio area and the flows of the lava (grey, orange, red)	As for many other vulcanoes, a lot of minerals can be found inside the lava but not in all flows of lava. Vesuvio is quite famous for being the type locality of one mineral: vesuviana or vesuvianite. In fact this minerals has been found for the first time. But also many others occurred as rarities here such as tenorite, anortite, spinel, nefelina. Vesuvianite is the typical mineral from Vesuvio, not easy to find in well shaped crystals but thanks to a lucky occurrence in some blocks of the 17th century lava, some real nice, bright vesuviana specimens have been made available for this pages. From the type locality for you !