Mount Etna Research Paper

In the South of Italy, you can find three active volcanoes: Vesuvius, which is near Naples, Etna on Sicily, and Stromboli which is off the Coast of Italy.

Mt. St Helens and Mt. Pinatubo have some common qualities that can put them in equal standing. First of all, the most significant eruptions occurred in the 20 th century, and had serious results in the surrounding areas. Both are an active stratovolcano that are known to the whole world. In addition, both volcanoes eruptions have a similar pattern; both started with an initial earthquake before the date that they erupted. Several people were killed as result of the

Mt. St. Helens was active during the early 19th century, with a major explosion in 1800 and several minor explosions in 1898, 1903, and 1932. Over the past 500 years it has had many minor eruptions and four major eruptions.

Volcanoes are classified with the Volcanic Explosively Index (VEI) scale. Mount St. Helens was ranked at a five, the highest is an eight. The volcano erupted at 8:32 AM May 18, 1980. In all fifty-seven people died, twenty-seven bodies were lost, and the surrounding town was wiped out. After the explosion there was a massive mudslide.

The eruption of 1912 was the biggest eruption of the 20th century. There were aftermath disasters. There was noise pollution, the sound of the blast was heard in Juneau, Alaska 750 miles away from the volcano. The volcano continued to erupt gas and tephra for 60 straight hours. The eruption caused people and animals on Kodiak Island to evacuate. Anyone who didn't evacuate quick enough died from suffocation, blindness, or inability to find food or water. The ash built up to 1 foot on the ground. Also ash built up on roofs causing buildings to collapse on

Volcanic eruptions can be disastrous and deadly. It is, therefore, important to look back at prior eruptions and compare them to present eruptions in order to draw conclusions on what could be done to mitigate loss of life and destruction. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD on Pompeii and surrounding areas proved to be catastrophic because of the location of the volcano and especially since citizens were not aware that an active volcano was in their midst. By examining the series of events that took place at Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and comparing them to the impacts and forecasting of present day volcanism, one could draw better conclusions

Pompeii is located near an area which is now known as Naples, Italy. At the time that Mount Vesuvius erupted, Pompeii was located closer to the mouth of the Sarno River. Modern day Pompei (which is now only spelled with one ‘I’) is considerably more inland than its predecessor. Current day excavations indicate that Pompeii had suffered through multiple seismic events before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Mount Mazama, a composite volcano, was formed by accumulation of smaller eruptions of lava flows over the past 400,000 years. During these eruptions, Mount Mazama became 3,700 m above sea level. In 2850 BCE, during the time frame of a few days, it erupted about 50 km3 of pyroclastic materials. The ash covered mainly the northwestern states and even parts of central Canada. The total surface area of covered ash became 2,600,000 km3, which was 1mm thick. This eruption was greater than Mt. Saint Helens’ eruption, and became its largest and last eruption. During the eruption, a volume of 42-54 km3 of the mountaintop disappeared. Mount Mazama collapsed in on itself, due to the massive amounts of magma that had been erupted, creating a void underneath

- Tephra deposit; felt thousands of miles away and many feet deep in close proximity to the volcano

Italy falls on the map straight across the North Atlantic Ocean from the a United States. It is a long peninsula in the shape of a boot. It is surrounded by France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; while the Alps help form Italy's northern boundary. The largest of its many northern lakes is Garda. Lake Garda is around 142 square miles. The Po is the name of Italy's principal river. It flows from the Alps in the west across the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea. There are Several islands that pull together to form Italy; the two largest are Sicily and Sardinia each around 9,500 square miles, Sicily being the largest. Around 40% of Italy's territory is mountainous. Many of the small islands in Italy occupy fourteen volcanos which four are still active today. Etna is the largest volcano in Europe, it resigns in Sicily. The volcanic activity is a result of Italy being place at the meeting point of the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate.

The mountain is a stratovolcano and is a symmetrical cone shape with steep sides . Mount Saint Helens consists predominantly of ash and the hardened lava that has come from the volcano in previous eruptions2. As Boron also mentions, the volcano’s shape is defined as a stratovolcano due to its ability to have the explosive eruptions that are forced out of its openings, and the pyroclastic flow that comes out of such a huge and forceful explosion. The visible landform that is most famous and clearly recognized to belong to Mount Saint Helens is the expansive and deep crater that is gashed in the top of the mountain1. This infamous crater is a result of the phenomenal explosion that Mount St. Helens had in 1980. A portion of the Mount St. Helens volcano was built upon deeply eroded, folded and altered volcanic rocks1. Along with the warped rocks Mt. St. Helens calls its base, it also sits upon

We went on a weekend trip to Fredericktown, Missouri and stopped at different locations in the area trying to understand the different igneous features we were seeing. The area is packed with igneous exposures from columnar basalts, Precambrian basement rock, granitic ring complexes, volcanic ejecta, to mantle xenoliths. Together, these features provide insight into the overall geology of the region, indicating that this terrain was once an active nested caldera complex (multitude of calderas within calderas). The highly silicic nature of these rocks indicates that calderas formed from the collapsing of rhyolitic dome structures, which sometimes in geologic literature is referred to as “super volcanoes.” The “super volcanoes” here are thought to have formed, the way many calderas do, by a subsurface pluton pushing its way up into the crust and erupting. Once the plutonic material erupts, the land subsides and the central part of the once outstretched region becomes a crater, which is termed caldera. In the case of the St. Francois Mountains and the highly silicic volcanics that are found in the region the plutonic source is potentially granitic in nature. However, there are mafic exposures, which are result of occasional basalt and mafic melts making their way to the surface through mantle source. Geologically, the St.Francois Mountains are complex, and as a regional feature, I do not know the entire evolutionary history for their

Mount vesuvius besides being a hundred of thousands of ear old volcano is also a somma stratovolcano. It is about 9 kilometers east of Naples and is a short distance from the shore. It is one of many volcanoes that formed from the Campanian volcanic arc. Its last eruption was in the year 1944. In the last 17,000 years it has had eight major eruptions. The 79 A.D is the most well known eruption out of the

Humans don’t have a big impact on Mount Etna, People only effect Mount Etna by documenting it and keeping track of what is happing around the volcano and monitoring it to prepare for the eruption. People’s houses and infrastructure can be damaged. For example an eruption of Mount Etna in 1928 destroyed the village of Mascali with the lava destroying nearly every building. This can leave people homeless.

A volcano is a cone-shaped mountain with serious destructive capabilities. Volcanoes are created when magma from the Earth’s mantle comes up from the ground to the surface and spews lava which solidifies and over time, the volcano increases in size. Tectonic plates are the reason for this, as