🌅 The Vesuvius Eruption Turned This Brain into Glass

SOURCE

Giordano et al. (2025)

WHAT TO KNOW

• A superheated cloud of ash preceding the pyroclastic flow that eventually engulfed Herculaneum after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago was so hot that it turned parts of a man’s spinal cord and brain into glass in a process known as vitrification. The authors of the present study found the man’s brain was rapidly heated and cooled by a 950-degree-Fahrenheit ash cloud that struck the city before the pyroclastic flows arrived.

WHY IT MATTERS

• To date, this is the only known example of vitrified soft tissue found in nature. Experts say natural vitrification is extremely rare as it requires liquid material to cool quickly enough to avoid forming crystals. Until now, it was unclear how the process could have happened after the Vesuvius eruption, as the pyroclastic flows weren’t hot enough nor would the rapid cooling have occurred. Since a superheated ash cloud would have appeared suddenly and disappeared quickly, the team thinks it might have created the right conditions for vitrification.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Herculaneum was a seaside resort town and one of the less-discussed Roman settlements that fell victim to Vesuvius, with the larger city of Pompeii most often at center stage. The first pyroclastic surge—there were 12 in total—swept through Herculaneum with the force of a hurricane, incinerating everything and everyone in its path. Researchers believe most of the city’s 5,000 residents fled before the worst of the eruption, however, archaeologists since the 1980s have discovered the remains of more than 300 people on the beach and in boathouses along the town’s seafront.