Cast of the shape of the body of a woman buried in ash at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius. When the volcano erupted in Italy nearly two thousand years ago, it destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The volcano killed many people and animals, leaving the shapes of their bodies to be preserved in the ash.
"I became interested in environmental catastrophes when I was writing a book on sudden and violent events in Earth history in the late 1980s. We live on a violent planet. Floods, storms, droughts earthquakes, volcanos, wildfires and outbreaks of disease put millions of people's lives at risk every year. These events can be very frightening because they are too big to control and they are often difficult or impossible to predict. Some disasters are avoidable but others aren't. People have changed the environment over thousands of years - by changing the climate, by taking water from lakes and rivers, by altering the chemical make-up of air, water, and soil, by destroying and breaking up natural habitats and by introducing animals and plants to different parts of the world. If we are careful about how we use natural resources now, we may help to prevent some disasters from happening in the future." - Richard Huggett, Lecturer in Geography, University of Manchester
