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Antonio Parrinello / Reuters
Mount Etna spews volcanic ash during an eruption on the southern Italian island of Sicily on Jan. 5, 2012. Mount Etna is Europe's tallest and most active volcano.
Mount Etna erupted on Thursday for the first time in 2012, forcing the temporary closure of Sicily's busiest airport, the Italian news agency ANSA reports. Europe's tallest active volcano spewed spectacular fountains of lava and sent up a plume of black smoke rising 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) above sea level. That prompted authorities to limit air traffic to Sicily's Catania Airport until midday, ANSA reported. Etna erupted 18 times during 2011, according to Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.
See more volcano eruptions on PhotoBlog.
Sicily's Mount Etna has erupted, marking its first eruption in weeks. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
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Awesome and impressive fireworks from mother nature.
Evening Chefaz..Yes got to hand it to Mother Nature to show us how it is really done.
It is not like we weren't expecting it, Mt Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Eighteen times in 2011 and getting an early start for 2012. Our Mt St. Helenes is a slowpoke compared to this volcano. But active volcanoes will be on the rise as the oceans water level rises. Higher ground water tables, and ground water is the cause of volcano eruptions. It converts the water into steam under pressure in the cauldron created from the former eruption and when the pressure gets high enough it blows some part of the mountain up to release the pressure. The steam is immediately cooled for the most part and flows down the mountainside as mudslides and pyrocaustic debris. That portion of the mountain not blown away collapses back to form a new steam containment vessel to start the process all over again. The frequency of the eruptions depends on how much water seeps back underground to form steam for the chamber and how solid the cap is on the containment vessel. Mt Etna sitting in the Medittereanian basin has plenty of water and a not so solid cap between eruptions. That accounts for its frequency.
Huh??? Not sure where you got that part about ground water affecting eruptions. Eruptions are caused when magma chamber has been filled and the pressure pushes it up through faults in the crust above. The magma chamber is many kilometers below the surface, and surface waters never get that deep. Surface waters can and do affect geysers and hot springs and such, but have little or no effect on volcanoes.
Oh yeah, Cause that water level sure has been rising. I noticed just the other day that the house I have on the beach in Florida , the one My father was raised in, is all "under water" and stuff now. Weird too, because the shore line looks to be EXACTLY the same distance as it has been for the last 50+ years! them water levels....fickle and strange things they are.
Mt. St. Helenes has a periodic eruption every hundred twenty five years or so. It sits over fifty miles from the Pacific Ocean and the water table at that distance is probably over a hundred fifty feet deep from the surface, it receives less water to convert into steam and its cap has longer to solidify into a solid containment vessel, while the steam pressure is building up. We have had rumblings from it since it last erupted in 1980, one because the Pacific Ocean level is rising and two because the collapsed cauldron has not had time to become fully solidified throughout. If present conditions continue we should expect another eruption within the next forty years or so instead of our customary hundred twenty five years.
How much planet-destroying CO2 is this European MONSTER spewing into our pristine atmosphere? Tell the Italians to make their volcano stop poisoning out planet THIS MUST STOP!!!
Nature actually contributing to "climate change"? impossible! It's only humans who can destroy our planet. (Tongue firmly planted in cheek)
I think we should have a global "Stop Breathing Day" to counter act the horrific effects that this horrible atrocity is doing to our planet! If you are concerned about global warming and melting ice caps and rising water levels caused by that AWFUL pollutant CO-2, then do your part and DONT BREATH for just one day on February 1st! spread the word!!