[Strategerist]

In the future people will look back and decide building a major metropolis at Naples was even dumber than building a major metropolis at New Orleans, I think.

Things to know:

1) There's no actual agreed-on Supervolcano definition, but Campei Flegrei falls at the lower end - it's a "small" supervolcano - the eruption 40,000 years ago was about 1/5th to 1/7th the size of the last Yellowstone Caldera Eruption.

2) MOST of the eruptions at Calderas are small. In between the "big" blasts there are all sorts of lava flows, "small" Mt. St. Helens-sized eruptions, etc. People have gotten it into their heads somehow that all eruptions at supervolcanoes are the end of the world ones.

3) Calderas "breathe" constantly without erupting - often over incredible distances. Iwo Jima is part of a caldera and it's risen over 400 feet in the last 400 years.

4) I'd like to pre-declare anyone making the same old tired and clueless jokes about volcanoes and global warming that appear on EVERY volcano thread a moron :-)

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Do you have any information on how much Hawai'i (the Big Island) is growing per year?

[yoe]

OMG! Algore wrong??????

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Drill down and then toss in a some giant concrete balls.

[livius]

I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago and went to Pompei. I'd been there before, but this was a great trip because the weather was cool enough and the place was unpopulated enough so that I could spend a long time really looking at things.

It was pretty stunning to think of all those folks in what was a very modern, well-laid out and bustling city, waking up one morning - and gone the next. The entire city disappeared in 24 hours; most of its residents died on the beach, having run down there in hopes they'd be picked up by ships. But obviously, with clouds of poisonous gases (as Livy found out) and volcanic mud shooting out, nobody could get close enough to rescue them, and they died there on the beach.

Nothing to laugh about.

[Steely Tom]

Human-induced global warming at fault, I'm sure.

[stevem]

I may be wrong about this, but I think the Bay of Naples is the result of some ancient caldera eruption. I was in Naples just short of two years ago. You can have my part of that community. Around that visit I spent a day in Pompeii. I could have happily spent a week.

Around those Naples and Pompeii days I spent about a week in Rome. I was in Rome and Naples during my Navy days many a long year ago and always wanted to show my wife just a bit of that part of my life.

The Bay of Naples is such a beautiful place. I wouldn't argue for a second about an opportunity to go back. Still, there isn't much in Naples proper that I would put on my list of places to see. There is so much more in the rest of Italy.

Calderas are fascinating entities. It's inevitable another will blow up one of these days. The misery that will cause. I guess I won't feel bad if I'm not around to see it.

[Disambiguator]

4) I'd like to pre-declare anyone making the same old tired and clueless jokes about volcanoes and global warming that appear on EVERY volcano thread a moron :-)

Do Al Gore jokes count towards moronity?

[USAFJeeper]

Thanks for the unwarranted slam on New Orleans. Mind if I pre-declare you a moron before you post again?

[taxesareforever]

The scientists have not said whether an eruption might occur anytime soon.

The power of not saying anything. Gotta make all those people feel so comfortable.

[GretchenM]

I'd like to pre-declare anyone making the same old tired and clueless jokes about volcanoes and global warming that appear on EVERY volcano thread a moron

Deal. But at least allow me to observe that I had no idea old Mr. Spock was related to the Italians: "the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology".