Let me be the first to say...
Eww
In contrast, my first thought when seeing this image was "Wow." Perhaps it affected me so because my own dog recently passed away, but this image struck a chord in me.
Look at how well preserved the feet are!
Of course, the dog wasn't the only time-capsuled
casualty of the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
discovered in the excavation of Pompei.
I am amazed at how well the teeth and mouth are preserved. It looks like it is floating.
What is the thing over it shoulders?
Torrere, I feel for you. I was the first one to find my first dog dead (of old age) and it hurts inside.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were both hit by pyroclastic flows, glowing avalanches of superheated gas and fine rock particles that can travel at hundreds of kilometers per hour. I think something like ten of these were produced during momentary lulls in the 79 A.D. eruption. When the eruption power would cease, the cloud of heavier-than-air gas and rock that had been exploding out of the crater would suddenly have nothing holding it up, and would fall back to earth and run down the sides of the mountain like water.
Next to mudflows, pyroclastic flows are probably the deadliest things that a volcano can produce. They move so fast that by the time you see one, it's probably too late to get out of the way.
It is said that the city walls actually parted the first several flows, but that later in the night they became too intense and the defenses were overcome.
