Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity:

Etna (Sicily, Italy): As expected, another paroxysmal eruption took place at the New SE crater over night. This marks the 16th such event in 2013. The main phase lasted about 5 hours between midnight and shortly before dawn. It consisted of violent pulsating lava fountains reaching 300-600 m height, thundering explosions of giant magma bubbles that ejected large glowing, liquid spatter to hundreds of meters distance in radial directions, and the effusion of several lava flows. The first lava flow was erupted from the fissure vent between the old and new SE crater and traveled to the south as far as the former Torre del Filosofo area, on top of the much larger flow from last week (11 Nov). A second flow was active from the eastern fissure of the cone, traveled east and bent NE at the 2008 vents and a few 100 m or so into Valle del Bove. The third flow was erupted to the NE towards the Valle del Leone, similar as during the previous paroxysm. In comparison, lava flow output was much less than during the past eruptive phase 6 days ago.