Etna’s 1981 eruption: the lava flow that narrowly missed Randazzo
In March 1981, Etna produced one of the most alarming warning signs for people living on its northern flank: thousands of small earthquakes, increasing in both frequency and intensity, showed that magma was rising and fracturing the side of the volcano. On 17 March, a system of eruptive fissures opened at high altitude. Within a […]
Pit Craters on Etna: the craters that form by collapsing
When we picture the crater of a volcano, the image is almost always the same: an explosion firing ash and lapilli into the sky, carving a hollow at the top of the mountain. On Etna, however, there are craters formed in exactly the opposite way — not because something was pushed out, but because the […]
Acitrezza and the columnar basalts: where Etna began
There are places where the history of Etna can be read without climbing to altitude. One of these is Acitrezza, a fishing village facing the Ionian coast a few kilometers from Catania, where the sea has laid bare the volcano’s oldest rocks. Here the columnar basalts emerge from the water like dark stone organ pipes, […]