Hephaestus was a builder and architect, goldsmith and gunsmith, blacksmith and inventor of mechanical objects. He forged the weapons of Heracles and Achilles, two great heroes. His cult has origins in Lemnos, where the ancient inhabitants believed that the volcanic fires coming out of the mountain M...

Volcanic eruptions are mainly divided into two types: effusive, where lava flows and escapes, and explosive, where the magma is fragmented by the explosion of the gas bubbles inside it. Explosive eruptions are in turn divided into 5-6 main types according to their energy, the volume of pyroclastic ...

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Founded on 4 November 1945 in Paris, just after the end of the Second World War, it aims to support peace, strengthen links between cultures and create an environmentally friendly model of economic development. These imp...

Wolfgang Sartorius Von Waltershausen was a famous German geologist and astronomer who lived in 1800. His Der Aetna, recently translated from German, could be defined as the first truly scientific-volcanological treatise on Etna. Split into three volumes, it contained very accurate drawings of many a...

From 1607 to 2000, Mount Etna emitted around 4.5 km3 of magma. However, 3 km3 was issued in 80 years between 1607 and 1689, and only 1.5 km3 in over 300 years. The duration of some eruptions lasting 10 years and the individual volumes of each eruption (up to 1 km3), are extraordinary parameters for ...

A paroxysm is an eruptive event of short duration but high intensity, especially in terms of explosiveness. It can create a fountain of lava reaching over 1 km in height, capable of fragmenting the magma very efficiently and forming large columns of ash that fall onto air traffic of the nearby airpo...

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On 6 May 1787, the German writer climbed Mount Etna, or rather, the Monti Rossi (Red Mountains), which were formed following the lateral eruption of 1669. His tour of Sicily, the Grand Tour considered by many Central European intellectuals, especially French and German, as a compulsory stage of educ...

Mario Gemmellaro was born in Nicolosi in 1773 and was a scholar of natural history, physics and meteorology. He was also a famous volcanologist. His research on Etna began around 1800, probably following contact with great naturalist travellers such as Déodat de Dolomieu and Lazzaro Spallanzani. In...

Pit craters are circular depressions up to one hundred metres deep, which at first glance look like a classic volcanic crater. But, unlike the latter, there has never been any eruptive activity in the pit craters. They are formed by sinking due to a movement of magma in the area below. As a result...