Etna: another breathtaking climax on the volcano

February 21, 2:54 p.m. The Southeast Crater emits only a little gasbut the thermal image reveals the fury that this cone volcanic is still alive. However, just a few hours ago, there was no indication of such a storm volcanic… Yes but here it is, at the moment with theEtnabetter be on your guard!

Weak explosive activity returned to the interior of the Southeast Crater around 9 a.m., causing a few puffs of ash. Over time, this activity intensified, with progressively more intense and closer explosions. And shortly after noon, the activity gained momentum again, with lava fountains several hundred meters high which, for two hours, fed a column of ashes nine kilometers high! Wonderful ! This ash plume was blown to the southeast by the winds, causing some ash fallout in the towns and villages of the area. The lava fountaining phase ended at 2:12 p.m., but two flows were still fed, to the southwest and east of the Southeast crater at that time.

These paroxysms can be related to pulses of a magma rich in gas that comes to the surface. At times last year, these paroxysms occurred every 24 to 48 hours, so even if some quieter periods did occur, 2021 ends with more than fifty paroxysms! So, will Etna do it again?

Spectacular eruption of Etna with huge lava fountains!

Article of Ludovic Leducpublished on February 14, 2002

More than three months after the last of the many paroxysms of the year 2021, Etna did it again on February 10. Lava fountains hundreds of meters high, lava flows, pyroclastic flows and deep scar in the Southeast crater, the Sicilian giant has marked its return!

After several months of intense activity, winter had settled on theEtna, the snow covering the black of the flows and slag composing the summit. A modest lava flow on December 13 and a episode strong enough ashes the next day could however attest that the calm is always relative on Etna…

As during the paroxysms of 2021, activity animated the Southeast crater, the most active volcanic cone of this volcano. Moreover, the intense activity of the past year has enabled it to reach approximately 3,357 meters of altitude, making this crater the summit of the volcano, a mark that it steals from its neighbor the North-East crater which was the summit for forty years!

I’incandescent returned to the interior of this volcanic cone on the night of February 9 to 10, associated with a modest explosive activity producing some weak ash emissions in a discontinuous manner. The activity continued thus during the day and, around 3:20 p.m., a lava flow appeared to the south of this Southeast crater. Then, the explosive activity intensified with more intense and more frequent explosions, so that, around 6:45 p.m., the explosions were linked almost continuously.

The eruption gained further intensity afterwards, with the climax strictly speaking between 9:30 p.m. and 10:40 p.m.: the degassing magmatic was then continuous, at the origin of jets of lava impressive from 500 to 600 meters high! The ashes produced by these lava fountains fed a column eruptive which reaches an altitude of about 10 kilometers, bent towards the northwest by the winds and at the origin of some fallout in inhabited areas.

A pyroclastic flow and the deeply modified Southeast crater

At 10:26 p.m. precisely, the southern flank of this Southeast crater was completely ripped open, causing a pyroclastic flow about 1,500 meters long towards the south, in an area where tourists come to admire the summit of the volcano… Fortunately, this sudden event took place in the middle of the night and during a non-tourist period, because these clouds of gas and ash are fast and therefore extremely dangerous! Be that as it may, the southern flank of this volcano now appears completely gutted: a deep scar cuts it from top to bottom!

This superb paroxysm is the first of the year 2022. It comes more than three months after that of October 23 which was the last of the incredible sequence started on February 16, 2021, a sequence that has seen more than fifty paroxysms of this type follow one another, sometimes with almost perfect regularity! Is this part of the same sequence? Is this an isolated event or does it mark the beginning of a great new year on this volcano? We will see. In the meantime, a Sicilian explained yesterday that she was not physically and mentally ready to sweep the ashes again on her Terrace every three days… A testimony that reminds us that, if the risks during these summit eruptions are very modest, they can still seriously disturb the inhabitants!