I went to Mt Etna on Saturday (September 6). Here are some interesting facts and pictures about the volcano!
1. The shape of the volcano
It has three main craters which you can see in this picture. The one on the left was formed in 1971, the small one in the middle in 2002 or 2008, and the one on the right (the smoking one) in 1911.
2. Signs of activity: (1) smoking, (2) ash deposits from the last few weeks (it shines like oil with soap in it):
(3) a recent hotel destroyed (in 2002):
Our guide Sandro, who stayed in it two weeks earlier, said it was very nice.
3. Are there steam vents, or cinder cones? Yes — lots of cinder cones, some very big. We went up one with a crater that was extinct. It was 25 m deep, but at the top maybe 4 ft wide only!
The crater shot out bombs — they could be anywhere from something I could carry to 4-6 tonnes! These bombs would either explode on impact…
on the ground or roll down the hill and become like balls!
This crater and these bombs were from the large 1865 eruption. During this eruption, lava also came out of Mt Etna, but also out of various large fissures, which would throw out lava in lines:
We could not get a good picture of this, but it had big walls on either side.