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For greater than per week, Mount Etna, one in every of Europe's most energetic volcanoes, has been spewing round, largely white smoke into the sky over Sicily.
It's not the primary time Mount Etna has mesmerized guests with its whispers (it's been known as the Gandalf of volcanoes, after the pipe-puffing wizard in “Lord of the Rings”) however consultants there say this month Etna “has damaged all earlier data,” together with the frequency of rings, in line with volcanologist Boris Behnke of the Nationwide Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Catania, who posted concerning the occasion on Fb.
These rings, often called volcanic vortex rings, appeared earlier this month after a small vent opened on the northwest border of the southeast crater. This phenomenon happens when sufficient strain builds in order that the magma contained in the crater pushes condensed gases, primarily water vapor, via the vent.
On this case, the vent is totally round, forming notably good rings. “It's bellissimo,” mentioned Simona Scollo, one other volcanologist on the INGV Etna Observatory in Catania, utilizing the Italian phrase for stunning. Ms Scollo revealed a examine on the dynamics of volcanic vortex rings final 12 months within the journal Scientific Studies.
However, he mentioned, the exercise doesn't imply Mount Etna is about to erupt in a very spectacular manner. “No, no, no,” she mentioned.
Throughout a phone interview Tuesday, he mentioned the mechanism of the smoke rings is much like the best way dolphins blow bubble rings. “They press the water into their mouth, and utilizing their tongue they push it out of their mouth and create such strain that it varieties a hoop,” she mentioned.
In accordance with the examine, the rings stay suspended within the air for wherever from one to 10 minutes, relying on climate situations. “If there may be turbulence they break down extra shortly,” he mentioned.
Interviewed in The New York Occasions final 12 months, Ms. Scollo mentioned the examine hoped to higher perceive how volcanoes perform, “not simply once they trigger catastrophe to folks or once they're very harmful.” ,” however even in quiet occasions.
A brand new vent on the volcano is spewing a whole bunch of rings, however one other vent on the volcano has additionally been spewing rings since final 12 months, albeit at a larger distance.
The phenomenon was first recorded on Etna in 1724, noticed periodically thereafter, most just lately final 12 months, and fairly spectacularly in 2000.
In accordance with the outline of its 2013 inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Website, Mount Etna is “the world's highest Mediterranean island mountain and most energetic stratovolcano.”
“Now we have recognized for a while that no volcano on Earth produces as many volcanic vortex rings as Etna,” Mr Benke mentioned.
Mount Etna isn’t the one volcano the place this phenomenon has been recorded. Volcanic vortex rings are fanned by many volcanoes all over the world, from Momotombo in Nicaragua to the ash-spewing airplane stopper Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, from Mount Redoubt in Alaska to a different energetic Italian volcano, Stromboli.
Ms Scollo mentioned the brand new vent was slowing exercise. And it could finish utterly.
“It could cease as a result of the properties of the conduits that permit the formation of those volcanic vortex rings might change, maybe with blockages,” she mentioned. Or the quantity of fuel inside the drain might lower, he mentioned.