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I also thought "hang on a minute. Pompeii? As in volcano Pompeii?" but apparently the city was never flooded with lava, but rather ash, which was cooler than wo

by jl6 2y ago

I also thought "hang on a minute. Pompeii? As in volcano Pompeii?" but apparently the city was never flooded with lava, but rather ash, which was cooler than would melt iron (still fatally hot though).

lukan 2y ago
The eruption was a violent explosion with molten rocks flying around. Some of them probably hit the city and some of them contained lots of iron would be my guess.
- meindnoch 2y ago
  Elemental iron is not present in rocks on Earth.
  - lukan 2y ago
    But iron ore is. And TFA literally talks about "liquified molten ore". And this is speculation, but I assume a molten ore rock from inside the vulcano shot outwards, might have enough energy and time to purify itself a bit (different elements have different density, centrifugal principle).
    - cryptonector 2y ago
      ^F ore says no. This is the only mention of "ore" in TFA: > In a way, the idea of using iron to fix potholes has come full circle. Currently, researchers in Minnesota are experimenting with using tailings left over from processing taconite, a type of low-grade iron ore, into a durable road patch.
      - lukan 2y ago
        That is right, I meant the other linked article from the comments with the pictures https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/roman-roads-0011920 https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/rom...
  - LightHugger 2y ago
    Elemental iron is in fact present in some rare geology on earth. However, that's unlikely to be related to this issue, since they found the iron localized to main roadways and not splattered all over.
  - loufe 2y ago
    You do get some very large deposits of mostly pure iron, all of which in Europe would be fully mined out by now. Here's a mine in Northern Canada near my own which has 60-70% pure iron ore (truly astronomically high purity compared to ores for other metals).
    - gus_massa 2y ago
      Where, so I can take a look for more details. Natural iron minerals are made of oxizized iron, that includes oxigen or sulfur. The chemical process to deoxidize iron requires a lot of energy.
      - throwway120385 2y ago
        I thought early Earth had no free oxygen with which to oxidize metal until life started producing it as a waste product? Isn't that why the banded iron formations exist?
        meindnoch 2y ago
        Banded iron formations are iron oxide, not elemental iron. Vast amounts of iron were dissolved in Earths oceans, until oxygen produced by photosynthesis oxidized it, to form iron oxide, which precipitated and sank to the bottom. This process went on for 2.5 billion years until all the dissolved iron was consumed.
        gus_massa 2y ago
        > I thought early Earth had no free oxygen [XXX] until life started producing it as a waste product? It's correct, but metal did get oxidized abyway before that. Don't expect to time travel and see bunchs of metalic Sodium. I'm only 99% sure thre was neither metalic Iron. Anyway, I googled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation The idea is that the water alewady had oxidized iron(2+) and some bacterias oxidized it to iron(3+) that is no so soluble and then you got deposits of mixed iron(3+), iron(2+) and oxygen (2-).
      - loufe 2y ago
littlestymaar 2y ago
Even with Lava, you're not going to melt iron, even when' it's just leaving the volcano it's not generally hot enough, and by the time it reaches the city it's even colder. The melting point of iron is very high, and that's why for a long time iron was never molten even during the production process (slag was, but not the iron)
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Also from the Wikipedia, I learned that people died of the heat and not suffocation. Which means that episode of Stargate lied to me where they claimed the opposite. A multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study[53] of the eruption products and victims, merged with numerical simulations and experiments, indicates that at Pompeii and surrounding towns heat was the main cause of death of people, previously believed to have died by ash suffocation.

by jl6 2y ago

lukan 2y ago

The eruption was a violent explosion with molten rocks flying around. Some of them probably hit the city and some of them contained lots of iron would be my guess.

meindnoch 2y ago
Elemental iron is not present in rocks on Earth.
- lukan 2y ago
  But iron ore is. And TFA literally talks about "liquified molten ore". And this is speculation, but I assume a molten ore rock from inside the vulcano shot outwards, might have enough energy and time to purify itself a bit (different elements have different density, centrifugal principle).
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    ^F ore says no. This is the only mention of "ore" in TFA: > In a way, the idea of using iron to fix potholes has come full circle. Currently, researchers in Minnesota are experimenting with using tailings left over from processing taconite, a type of low-grade iron ore, into a durable road patch.
    - lukan 2y ago
      That is right, I meant the other linked article from the comments with the pictures https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/roman-roads-0011920 https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/rom...
- LightHugger 2y ago
  Elemental iron is in fact present in some rare geology on earth. However, that's unlikely to be related to this issue, since they found the iron localized to main roadways and not splattered all over.
- loufe 2y ago
  You do get some very large deposits of mostly pure iron, all of which in Europe would be fully mined out by now. Here's a mine in Northern Canada near my own which has 60-70% pure iron ore (truly astronomically high purity compared to ores for other metals).
  - gus_massa 2y ago
    Where, so I can take a look for more details. Natural iron minerals are made of oxizized iron, that includes oxigen or sulfur. The chemical process to deoxidize iron requires a lot of energy.
    - throwway120385 2y ago
      I thought early Earth had no free oxygen with which to oxidize metal until life started producing it as a waste product? Isn't that why the banded iron formations exist?
      - meindnoch 2y ago
        Banded iron formations are iron oxide, not elemental iron. Vast amounts of iron were dissolved in Earths oceans, until oxygen produced by photosynthesis oxidized it, to form iron oxide, which precipitated and sank to the bottom. This process went on for 2.5 billion years until all the dissolved iron was consumed.
      - gus_massa 2y ago
        > I thought early Earth had no free oxygen [XXX] until life started producing it as a waste product? It's correct, but metal did get oxidized abyway before that. Don't expect to time travel and see bunchs of metalic Sodium. I'm only 99% sure thre was neither metalic Iron. Anyway, I googled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation The idea is that the water alewady had oxidized iron(2+) and some bacterias oxidized it to iron(3+) that is no so soluble and then you got deposits of mixed iron(3+), iron(2+) and oxygen (2-).
    - loufe 2y ago

littlestymaar 2y ago

Even with Lava, you're not going to melt iron, even when' it's just leaving the volcano it's not generally hot enough, and by the time it reaches the city it's even colder. The melting point of iron is very high, and that's why for a long time iron was never molten even during the production process (slag was, but not the iron)

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

Also from the Wikipedia, I learned that people died of the heat and not suffocation. Which means that episode of Stargate lied to me where they claimed the opposite. A multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study[53] of the eruption products and victims, merged with numerical simulations and experiments, indicates that at Pompeii and surrounding towns heat was the main cause of death of people, previously believed to have died by ash suffocation.