The last eruption of Mount Etna should not frighten or Sicilians, and no tourists, gathering" a visit to the Mafia. " Terrible lack of eruptions. Many scientists believe that Aetna is gradually transformed to the type of explosive volcanic activity.
Eruption of Mount Etna, Sicily, scared residents on Saturday, ended barely started. Lava flows that started to break out of the south-west of the crater of a volcano in the fourth hour of the day, local time (sixth in Moscow), resulted in the uninhabited part of the Italian island. And for half of the tenth (half an hour before midnight Moscow time) back to normal seismic activity.
But short-term events can not be complacent. Aetna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and certainly the most active in Europe, and the eruption for him - a condition more typical than a dream. The volcano is part of the 16 most worthy of close study, in the opinion of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's interior. These volcanoes, which may include Avachinsk volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, are considered especially dangerous because of the incessant activity, threatening the nearby settlements.



Sixteen terrible volcanoes

In late 1980 the UN declared 1990 the decade to combat natural disasters. In commemoration of this was allocated 16 volcanoes decades, particularly dangerous for the population because of its high Mount Etna is a type of stratovolcanoes - usually high and steep volcanic formations in which the narrow vents rising up very thick and viscous magma. In the case of the Sicilian volcano, it has a lot of options where to go next. There are several craters, the activity of each of which then dies, then the burn again.
Volcano itself as a separate mountain, fought his way into the light, less than half a million years ago, but geologists believe that the preparation of this lasted about a half million years , for most of the Pleistocene epoch. For a long time here attended thyroid Volcano, less viscous lava which is widely spread over the gentle slopes and to a large extent shape the very Sicily.
However, about three hundred thousand years ago is not yet clear reasons magma was more viscous, and not far from the island, which has now become Sicily, began to climb the cone of fire of the mountain. Over time, mostly to her own efforts and partly due to changes in sea level Volcano - "Grandfather" of modern Etna has become part of the island. The center of volcanic activity, a position which is easy to determine, by studying rocks spew every now and then shifted, obeying not fully explored by underground forces. About 170 thousand years ago formed Etna, which has now raised to 3.3 kilometers above the washing Sicily, the Mediterranean Sea.


Sicily to destroy not only the volcanoes

not only the mathematical modeling and geological surveys and historical data of tsunami allow modern researchers of this natural phenomenon to better understand its mechanism.
Aetna acquired the present shape only in the last several thousand years. During this time the nature of the activity of the volcano repeatedly changed from a slow trickle of lava and volcanic gases through the primary and multiple parasitic craters and fissures in the blast, which flew up cubic kilometers of volcanic material. It was during such explosions, and collapse of slopes of the volcano and formed the current shape of Mount Etna.
Some scientists believe that a change in the type of volcanic activity occurs in the last decade. Dnsyatogo May eruption center was south-east crater, which at least forty years. This volcanic bowl appeared only after the massive eruption of 1971, when the fallen arches of stone "valve" in the south-eastern slope of the central crater, through which the eruption of the will of the escaped volcanic gases, steam and ash. Eruption stopped, the gas pressure has fallen, and under its own weight "valve" hit.
Seven years is a place with a mind remained nothing more than a volcanic pit topography monument eruption in 1971 and destroyed the observatory, in which the XIX century, scientists were monitoring the sky (it was one of the European study centers of variable stars) and the activity of the volcano. However, in late 1970 a new crater woke up, and since then the volcanic cone around it, then rising, slightly collapsing, rose nearly 300 meters, making the end of the 1990's spurt of almost 100 meters in a couple of years.
This is the south-east crater has become the center of the last two strong eruptions of Mount Etna in fall 2007, it grew from this recent lava fountains, rising above the volcano. And while these fountains are beaten, you do not get nervous: lava still be free to flow from the crater of a volcano. To think seriously about a trip to Sicily will be necessary in the day when the earthquake, its great slopes, will no longer accompany the eruption. This means that the bowels of the earth again began to accumulate power.

Vladimir Gramm