Nature
PUBLISHED
A spectacular display could be seen lighting up the night sky on Thursday near Mount Etna, as a fountain of lava burst out from a crater of Italy’s largest active volcano.
It’s not unusual for the volcano, which is on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, to erupt, but activity at some of its craters began to pick up towards the end of June. One of these was the Voragine crater, which had previously been dormant for 4 years.
Then, on Thursday night, the Voragine crater violently exploded, spewing ash and bright orange lava, providing a stark contrast with the dark night sky. Italian volcanologist, Marco Neri, told The New York Times that the ash plume had reached over 4500 meters (nearly 15,000 feet).
The airport in Catania, Sicily’s second-largest city, was forced to close early on Friday due to the volcanic ash, though its now set to re-open, albeit with a warning of possible delays.
It’s highly unlikely that this will be the last time the volcano causes trouble.
Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with a long history of almost continuous eruptive activity. And when we say long, we mean long – its eruptions can be traced back 500,000 years.
The main reason why we know that is thanks to science, but there’s more than just geological evidence for Etna’s eruptions too. There are at least 2,700 years of documentation on its activity, one of the world’s longest records of volcanism.
Its displays aren’t always quite so fiery, however – Mount Etna can also produce some pretty impressive-looking vortex rings.
