Etna 2018-2021

Summer 2021: South-East Crater

In Summer 2021, activity of the South-East Crater increased, producing violent paroxysms. During the second half of June, intervals between the paroxysms were less than one day. Since July, the intervals became longer and the activity grew stronger, with lava fountains taller than one kilometer and lasting more than two hours. Effusive rates reached many hundreds of cubic meters per second. The southern and eastern flanks of the volcano are now covered by deposits of cm-sized scoria from this exceptional activity. The deposits are ten centimetres thick at a distance of five kilometers from the summit craters, and meters thick close to the summit. The activity involved the east-to-west fissure disecting the summit of the South-East crater, that, due to the bomb deposits, increased in height by hundreds of meters in a few months. It is now the tallest point of Etna at almost 3400 m.a.s.l. Marco followed twenty of these successive eruptive phases from mid June to mid October. The video below contains a selection of about one tenth of the footage collected. It documents the diversity of the activity of the many vents along the eastern eruptive fissure, such as long-lasting lava fountains, billowing ash columns, shock waves caused by exploding magma bubbles. The latter are associated with impressive bangs shaking houses all around the volcano. Fast lava flows got as long as five kilometers in Valle del Bove.