Sicily’s Mount Etna, Europe’s biggest active volcano, erupted again Monday, leaving an ash and smoke plume that severely cut air service to the nearby city of Catania and shaking the area with several minor earthquakes.
Unlike more recent eruptions, including last year’s, the eruption occurred on the mountain’s side, rather than at its 3,300-metre summits. Because of the dense cloud and heat, experts from Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology could not immediately say if there was a lava flow.
The last lateral eruption took place a bit over ten years ago. An eruption last year had spectacular plumes, but no lava flow. In other news about Etna, scientists writing in the Bulletin of Volcanology say that the volcano is sliding toward the Mediterranean Sea at a constant pace of 14 millimetres per year.
