In 79 C.E., an ash column with a mushroom top towered over the ancient Roman city of Pompeii as residents scrambled to flee the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The effects of the eruption were devastating to the area.

As one ancient historian, Pliny the Younger, recounted the events to another historian, Cornelius Tacitus, “On Mount Vesuvius sheets of fire and leaping flames blazed at several points, their bright glare emphasized by the darkness of night.”