Pompeii's Destruction Helps Calibrate Volcanic Dating to Within Decades

Scientists Turn Pompeii’s Destruction Into the Most Precise Clock Yet for Dating Ancient Volcanic Eruptions

Thanks to the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, archaeologists now have access to the most exact volcanic eruption dating technique ever.

Pompeii's destruction helps calibrate volcanic dating to within decades

When Pliny the Younger recorded his firsthand experience of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago—a cataclysm that buried Pompeii and killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder—he provided enough detail about the date to allow scientists to benchmark methods for dating volcanic eruptions.

Rocks from Pompeii suburb tells a story of destruction—that could help us today

Chemistry and first-person sources are joining forces to date eruptions.

Pompeii Eruption Gives Scientists a Precise New Clock for Dating

Scientists have used the historically documented date of the Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii to recalibrate argon-argon dating and halve the uncertainty in potassium-40's half-life.