Page 92 - Super Earth Encyclopedia

VOLATILE VOLCANO

MOUNT ETNA

Looming over the Mediterranean island of Sicily, Mount Etna Ash cloud
is one of the world’s most active stratovolcanoes. Its regular Unusually, Etna erupts in many different
ways. Some eruptions unleash rivers of liquid
eruptions have built up a vast cone of ash and lava, high enough molten rock, while others are more explosive,
to be capped with snow in winter. But the frequent eruptions producing billowing clouds of volcanic ash,
also act as safety valves, releasing pressure that might otherwise and raining lava bombs on to the slopes below.
cause much bigger, more dangerous eruptions. So, despite its Searing hot ash and
volatile nature, Etna is not as violent as it looks. gas cascade downhill
Magma forced between in pyroclastic flows.
rock layers has formed
shallow magma chambers.
Eruptions from small vents
and fissures have created
hundreds of cinder cones,
AT A GLANCE such as this one.

• HEIGHT 10,922 ft (3,329 m)

• CIRCUMFERENCE About 93 miles (150 km)
• VOLCANO TYPE Stratovolcano
• LOCATION Eastern Sicily, Italy

STATS AND FACTS
ABOUT
500,000 NEARBY POPULATION
YEARS More than 25% of Sicily’s
MOST VIOLENT ERUPTION
population live on Etna’s slopes.
AGO
FORMATION
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
MARCH
One of the world’s VOLCANIC ACTIVITY SMOKE RINGS 1669
most complex
volcanoes, Mount The volcano has Etna’s summit
craters emit giant
erupted about
Etna is also the 200 times in the smokelike rings that
biggest and most last 3,500 years. are made of steam.
active in Europe.

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