Introduction
Volcanism as an Environmental Hazard
Dr. Robert Giegengack
University of Pennsylvania
Modern Observations of Catastrophic Volcanic Eruptions
Dr. Katharine V. Cashman
University of Oregon

Vesuvius-Impact: Direct and Indirect
Dr. Rudolf Winkes
Brown University

The Excavations at Thera: A Revolution in our Knowledge of Bronze Age Greece
Dr. Philip Betancourt
Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania

Closing Remarks
Question and Answer Period

6:00 P.M. Reception (Separate Fee)

For More information call:
The Museum Events Office at 215-898-4890
The Institute for Environmental Studies at 215-573-3164

Since long before the dawn of Written history, human societies have lived in close proximity to active and dormant volcanoes. We have no record of many societies that must have been destroyed by catastrophic eruptions of neighboring volcanoes, but evidence survives from enough such events to persuade us that explosive volcanism has been a principal environmental hazard to human societies for a long time.

Eyewitness accounts and painstaking archaeological reconstructions have taught us something about the terror and chaos that prevailed in the seconds before people were overwhelmed by clouds of incandescent gas, showers of heated ash, and/or enormous waves from the open sea. But it is only in the very recent past that volcanologists have learned enough about the processes that control the timing, location, and intensity of volcanic eruptions to enable us cautiously to suggest that we may be on the verge of predicting future volcanic disasters in time to minimize loss of human life.

On January 17, Katharine Cashman will describe two volcanic events for which extensive geological and geophysical data have been compiled: the explosive destruction on August 26, 1883, of the mountain that was Krakatoa in the strait between Indonesia and Sumatra, and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State on May 18, 1890. Much of the modern science of volcanology is based on the records of those two events.

Rudolph Winkes will tell us what science has learned from generations of Excavation at the classic sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Philip Betancours will describe for us the archaeological evidence from which he has been able to reconstruct the last moments of the island of Santorini, destroyed in an event which many historians believe was the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis.