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May 29, 2007

News
February 10, 2003

Fierce Forecasts for Mt. Etna Eruptions

By Sarah Graham

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Image: NASA

Mt.
Etna, located in the northeast of Sicily, is one of the earth's most active
volcanoes. In July of 2001, an eruption destroyed buildings in a tourist refuge
and threatened the town of Nicolosi. Fifteen months later, another outburst
produced more menacing lava flows. Now scientists say that Etna's future may
prove to be even more dangerous than its storied past.

Domenico Patane of the National Institute on Geophysics and Volcanology in
Catania, Italy, and his colleagues analyzed data on 647 earthquakes that
occurred near Mt. Etna between 1994 and 2001. In a paper published online last
week by the journal Science, the team argues that during that period, a
huge volume of magma intruded below the volcano at the intersection of two fault
lines. According to the report, the magma was initially confined to between six
and 15 kilometers below sea level, but compression of the chamber combined with
the magma's increasing volume forced it up to shallower depths. The escalating
pressure within the mountain's plumbing system has fractured the rock and led to
the most recent eruptions.

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The blasts that began in 2001 differ from Etna's other blasts of the
last 30 years. The scientists point out that older eruptions were typically
followed by periods of very low seismic activity that could last for periods
between a few months and two years. But after the 2001 outburst, seismic
activity remained high. They conclude that "Mt. Etna eruptive activity could
become more frequent, voluminous and potentially hazardous in the near future."

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