etnaboris
When there's no wind at Etna's summit, the explosions seem to be much bigger
When I got out of bed this morning, my love Catherine (who had gotten up a bit earlier) told me that there had just been a quite powerful explosion from the Bocca Nuova on Etna's summit. In fact, a huge plume was still hovering over the summit, rising unusually high because there was virtually no wind up there, which is extremely rare. About a half hour later, another explosion occurred, or rather a series of explosions, which generated a spectacular, mushroom-shaped plume that rose something like 1.5 km above the summit. This time I captured the whole event from its beginning in a series of photographs. This is one of them, showing a more advanced stage of the rising plume.
The current activity at the Bocca Nuova started on the morning of 14 June 2011 and it seems that there is progressively more new magmatic material in the emissions. On the evening of Friday 1 July, a thermal monitoring camera of the INGV-Catania showed a conspicuous thermal anomaly in one of the emissions; on the early morning of 6 July, incandescent bombs were thrown high into the air above the crater for the first time.
At the same time, very small and still quite infrequent Strombolian explosions continue from the New Southest Crater - seen here on the right side of the Southeast Crater cone, just to the right of the ash plume - but thus far there is no significant increase in the size and frequency of the explosions, and seismic activity remains relatively low.
Photo taken at 07:59 h (local time = GMT+2) on 7 July 2011 from my home in Trecastagni, on the southeast flank of the volcano
UPDATE - activity at the New Southeast Crater is gradually increasing on the evening of 7 July 2011, and very likely will culminate, within the next 24-36 hours, in a new paroxysmal episode with tall lava fountains. Keep an eye on the various web cams aimed at Etna: the INGV-Catania web cams (plus the nearly forgotten "Schiena dell'Asino" webcam of the INGV-Catania) and the Radiostudio7 web cams
When there's no wind at Etna's summit, the explosions seem to be much bigger
When I got out of bed this morning, my love Catherine (who had gotten up a bit earlier) told me that there had just been a quite powerful explosion from the Bocca Nuova on Etna's summit. In fact, a huge plume was still hovering over the summit, rising unusually high because there was virtually no wind up there, which is extremely rare. About a half hour later, another explosion occurred, or rather a series of explosions, which generated a spectacular, mushroom-shaped plume that rose something like 1.5 km above the summit. This time I captured the whole event from its beginning in a series of photographs. This is one of them, showing a more advanced stage of the rising plume.
The current activity at the Bocca Nuova started on the morning of 14 June 2011 and it seems that there is progressively more new magmatic material in the emissions. On the evening of Friday 1 July, a thermal monitoring camera of the INGV-Catania showed a conspicuous thermal anomaly in one of the emissions; on the early morning of 6 July, incandescent bombs were thrown high into the air above the crater for the first time.
At the same time, very small and still quite infrequent Strombolian explosions continue from the New Southest Crater - seen here on the right side of the Southeast Crater cone, just to the right of the ash plume - but thus far there is no significant increase in the size and frequency of the explosions, and seismic activity remains relatively low.
Photo taken at 07:59 h (local time = GMT+2) on 7 July 2011 from my home in Trecastagni, on the southeast flank of the volcano
UPDATE - activity at the New Southeast Crater is gradually increasing on the evening of 7 July 2011, and very likely will culminate, within the next 24-36 hours, in a new paroxysmal episode with tall lava fountains. Keep an eye on the various web cams aimed at Etna: the INGV-Catania web cams (plus the nearly forgotten "Schiena dell'Asino" webcam of the INGV-Catania) and the Radiostudio7 web cams