Imagine feeling hopeless; you can smell the sulfur in the air, tickling the back of your throat. The ground rumbles and sways as if the Gods themselves are furious and want to unleash themselves on this small town. Panic everywhere in the streets, women screaming, children running scared through the streets, men desperately trying to save their families from certain ruin. This is how it would feel if you lived in the Italian city of Pompeii in 79 AD, when Mount Vesuvius had perhaps the largest volcanic eruption for its time. The feeling of hopelessness is not a good feeling to have. Not knowing what is about to happen to an entire city is devastating. We now live in a world where we are more aware of what Mother Nature can do without warning. Also known as stratovolcanoes, these volcanoes are the largest and most majestic of the three types of volcanoes. Most composite volcanoes are located on the Pacific Ocean, in an area known as the “Ring of Fire” (Lutgens. F, Tarbuck. E. pp-238-239 2014). Composite volcanoes are composed of silica-rich magma, which has an andesitic composition. This, together with the occasional presence of various amounts of basaltic lava and pyroclastic felsic lava, results in dense, viscous lava that does not travel more than a few kilometers. Composite volcanoes are known to have very explosive eruptions. This is why composite volcanoes can be the most dangerous. Composite volcanoes such as Fujiyama in Japan and Etna in Italy are both composite volcanoes. Mt. St. Helens is another example of a composite volcano. Its eruption in 1980 flattened many forest trees and filled a lake with magma that sat next to the giant symmetrical volcano that is Mount St. Helens (Lutgens. F, Tarbuck. E. pp-238-239 2014). Just like St. Helena, Vesuvius is a composite volcano. These volcanoes need to be studied to understand how and when they might erupt. If we can better understand these giant volcanoes, we may be able to save people in the future. Pants and vegetation are important, however, volcanic eruptions and their damage to vegetation and trees are an ongoing phenomenon. It was also shown that they were later tasked with escaping from the jaws of the gigantic volcano known to them as Mt. Vesuvius. For the common citizen of Pompeii the mountain was just that, a mountain. They didn't know what we know today about volcanoes and their lava eruptions. Not only lava and flying projectiles, but there were also earthquakes that led to the eruption that leveled the entire city of Pompeii. It is for this reason that many were unable to escape certain death. For them it was a typical day in one of the most sophisticated cities known to mankind at the time. The city of Pompeii had aqueducts, modern paved streets, shops and many other things. In this era these goods were not available to anyone except the citizens of Pompeii. Of course, they had ample warnings given by the thundering mountain. Earthquakes shook the city, but the citizens were unaware of what was happening beneath them. The citizens of Pompeii had no knowledge of how the Earth worked. They had no idea that a strong, pungent odor was coming from the mountain, which was the smell of sulfur. Animals died due to the gases escaping from Vesuvius, but how can citizens know this when they don't know how volcanoes work? At the time there was no word for volcano in Latin, how could these poor souls be ready for what they didn't even expect now? In the article "Buried by a volcano" Tarshis continues