Vesuvius - On a Fault Line

Mt. Vesuvius, an Italian landmark and one of the most famous volcanoes in the world, exists because it is located on a fault line running across Italy. Here, the crack in the Earth's crust occurs because of plate tectonics - where the African Plate is lying beneath the Eurasian Plate.

Because of subduction, between the plates, the Apennine Mountains are being uplifted and the Mediterranean Sea is shrinking. That process can also produce earthquakes.

This image of Italy, and Mt. Vesuvius, was produced by ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer), a NASA imaging instrument which flies on Terra (a satellite launched in December of 1999, as part of NASA's Earth Observing System). According to NASA's ASTER web site:

ASTER is being used to obtain detailed maps of land surface temperature, reflectance and elevation. The three EOS platforms are part of NASA's Science Mission Directorate and the Earth-Sun System, whose goal is to observe, understand, and model the Earth system to discover how it is changing, to better predict change, and to understand the consequences for life on Earth.

Click on the image for an even closer view.