Study: Hot Vesuvian ash cloud really did turn a brain to glass

For several years now, we've been following a tantalizing story indicating that the high heat of the ash cloud generated when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD was sufficiently hot to turn one of the victim's brains into glass. It remains a matter of debate in the archeological community, but a fresh analysis of the physical properties of the glass-like material found in the remains lends more evidence to the hypothesis, as detailed in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. As previously reported, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius released thermal energy roughly equivalent to 100,000 times the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, spewing molten rock, pumice, and hot ash over the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in particular. The vast majority of the victims died of asphyxiation, choking to death on the thick clouds of noxious gas and ash. But a 2001 study in Nature, co-authored by Petrone, estimated a temperature of 500° Celsius (932 ... Read full article.