One Mount Etna eruption took weeks. Another happened in hours
A Cornell-led research team studied two past Mount Etna eruptions, revealing dramatically different magma pathways and ascent speeds. The findings highlight how a single volcano can erupt through varied processes, with implications for improving eruption risk models. The research also delves into the role of volatiles like carbon dioxide in driving explosive volcanic activity.
Why it matters
Understanding the varied mechanisms of volcanic eruptions, particularly the speed and volatile content, is crucial for improving predictive models and mitigating risks to populations living near active volcanoes.
Volcanoes are fed by enormous underground networks of magma and gas, but those systems do not always behave the same way. Even a single volcano can produce eruptions through very different processes.
A Cornell-led research team has now shown just how dramatically those pathways can vary at Mount Etna in Italy. By reconstructing two major eruptions from the volcano's past, the scientists found that magma followed very different routes and moved toward the surface at very different speeds.
Understanding those differences, along with the techniques used to uncover them, could help scientists improve models used to estimate the risks posed by future eruptions.
The findings were recently published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems . The first author is former postdoctoral researcher Maxim Gavrilenko.
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