I don’t suppose either Amazon or regular blog readers will mind me sharing this short excerpt from today’s episode in the ongoing Vella story Sunday Morning Volcanoes, 2024. I’m taking advantage of a couple advanced blog formatting features but otherwise keep the basic text approach of Kindle. Note: Last month’s theme was “Curtains of fire”; for February, it’s “Namesakes.”
Surprise!
The namesake of our word “volcano” is not a tall and pointy stratovolcano like Vesuvius, nor is it a Hawaiian-like shield made out of dark basalt lavas.
From the deck of a cruise ship gliding through the Mediterranean about twelve miles north of Sicily, Vulcano looks like an eight-square-mile, earth-colored aircraft carrier accompanying the scenic geological flotilla (and UNESCO World Heritage site) known as the Aeolian Islands.
Vulcano’s uniquely complicated features present a challenge for Italian volcanologists who monitor and try to classify this fire-breathing island.
For now, the boffins are going with “volcanic complex or composite stratovolcano (?)” (INGV) as they continue with research here (see Selva et al. in the source list, for example).
However, if your definition of a volcano is more along the lines of “Earth’s gaping maw filled with ashy ruin and lined with steaming pillars of reeking sulfurous vapor, towering over a town,” then Vulcano is a perfect fit:
The first impression from that drone view of Vulcano’s lava-free but fuming vent is of an enormous natural presence, powerful, mostly unseen yet operating constantly on a scale greater than anything humans are capable of.
Nowadays, geoscientists attribute the volcanism to complex plate tectonics and a slow-motion ongoing collision between Africa and Eurasia.
But the feel of this awful, majestic place helps us understand why both Ancient Greeks and the Romans who followed them identified it with a god’s forge (the god Vulcan, in Latin mythology).
Frankly, both explanations for this island’s existence are mindboggling.
Yet it exists, and whatever gods might be associated with Vulcano seem also to have spilled a little molten material into the sea at the island’s north end, between it and nearby Lipari (which is also volcanic).
The stuff apparently ponded there and hardened into a low-lying deck that is now covered with trees, a few scoria cones and hydrothermal features, roads, and resorts that fill three port towns — Vulcano, Levante, and Ponente — plus some villas and hideaways tucked under the forest canopy on Vulcanello at the rounded tip of this beautifully level little lava peninsula.
And 1,600 feet above it all, the treeless, shelterless volcanic crater fumes…
…
Down at the bottom of the crater, a small lake reflects the cloudy sky, but those loosely piled cinder walls around it are too steep to climb on.
There is much loose rock lying around because Vulcano also gives its name to a type of intermittent explosive eruption that shatters rising magma.
Larger lava fragments and the heavier examples of those charmingly named “breadcrust bombs” from vulcanian eruptions here and at many other volcanoes always pile up around their vent.
Anyway, Vulcano’s crater lake is probably acid and toxic gases likely fill that low area, so we stay on the network of gray dirt paths along the crater rim.
In addition to all the shattered lava rock lying around up here since 1888-1890 (the first ever scientifically recorded vulcanian eruption), the drone video shows us those aforementioned reeking fumaroles at the crater’s edge, surrounded by gray altered material and yellow fields of crystallized and occasionally molten sulfur (fumarole temperatures go up when Vulcano is restless).
Whenever the gentle Mediterranean breeze dies down, Vulcan’s forge can be a very smelly place!
Low hills that fade off southward into the distance behind the crater hint at the many ways volcanism has shaped all of this island in the past, though recent activity focuses on the Great Crater and (up to the mid-1500s) on Vulcanello.
As the drone turns to take us down to the flatland where most (but not all) island people work and live, you can just make out one or two tiny human figures walking on one of the crater’s paths.
They give us a sense of scale — yes, Gran Cratere is quite gran.
Yet it is not a caldera (although it sits inside one)…
…
Is it safe?
As you can tell from the drone video’s close-ups of a hot mud pool and images of yellowish-gray hydrothermal rock, Vulcanello still has a fiery heart.
The Gran Cratere obviously is still active, too.
What about the people living so close to these Earth fires — some five hundred year-round residents and about fifteen thousand tourists seasonally?
…
More work is needed, as Selva et al. and other volcanologists point out.
But thanks to the work already done, the rest of us can make informed decisions on when or how or even if we dare to approach this beautiful, scary, unforgettable “forge of the gods” and namesake of all the fire mountains known today.
Monitoring:
INGV (Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology): https://www.ingv.it/en/volcano (Last accessed January 31, 2024.)
More information:
Global Volcanism Program: https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=211050
UNESCO Aeolian Islands World Heritage Centre: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/908/
Sources include:
Clarke, A. B.; Voight, B.; Neri, A.; and Macedonio, G. 2002. Transient dynamics of vulcanian explosions and column collapse. Nature, 415(6874): 897-901.
Clarke, A. B.; Ongaro, T. E.; and Belousov, A. 2015. Vulcanian eruptions, in “The Encyclopedia of Volcanoes,” (pp. 505-518). Academic Press.
Clocchiatti, R.; Del Moro, A.; Gioncada, A.; Joron, J. L.; and others. 1994. Assessment of a shallow magmatic system: the 1888–90 eruption, Vulcano Island, Italy. Bulletin of Volcanology, 56: 466-486.
Explore Volcanoes. 2024. Vulcano. http://www.explorevolcanoes.com/vulcano-volcano-italy.html#:~:text=Once%20at%20the%20top%20a,visible%20on%20the%20crater%20floor Last accessed February 4, 2024.
Selva, J.; Bonadonna, C.; Branca, S.; De Astis, G.; and others. 2020. Multiple hazards and paths to eruptions: A review of the volcanic system of Vulcano (Aeolian Islands, Italy). Earth-Science Reviews, 207: 103186.
Wikipedia. 2024. Vulcano. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcano Last accessed January 31, 2024.
Featured blog post image: Roberto La Rosa/Shutterstock
Flight To Wonder 