SwissEduc - Stromboli online

Video clips 1. May 1999 All movies were taken on 1. May 1999 during a quick visit to Etna by Marco Fulle and Jürg Alean. Recordings were made with a digital video camera. All video clips are presented in QuickTime format. As always: Clicking the image will bring up the movie. Special thanks to Boris Behncke for invaluable information about the «path» leading over some very difficult terrain right up to the active lava flows. We owe further thanks to the unknown person who left a newspaper lying below «Belvedere». We used various bits of it to mark what we later on called the «highway». This made it possible for us to find our way back to safety in the middle of the night ;-)
Marco Fulle is getting hot feet standing just below the only active ephemeral vent. We shall not embaras Marco by showing what he did a few seconds later. His boots will tell the tale! 1.4 MB	This is a funny one! You see the moving surface of a small flow most of which is hidden below some solid lava which forms dams on either side of the flow. 0.9 MB	The lava is emerging at the ephemeral vent. Note the «strand lines» in wall to the right of the flow. 1.0 MB	This is about as near we could possibly get - some two meters from the flowing lava. After just a few seconds the video camera had to be covered quickly to avoid overheating in the intensive thermal radiation. Note how some small blocks of lava «roll» along the righthand «shore». 1.8 MB
Islands of solid lava between the active flows. The nearer flow is about two to three metres wide. It's «speed» is about 0.2 to 0.4 metres per second in the part neares to the camera. There is still some evening light illuminating the background and some smoke issued from steeper parts of the flow. 1.1 MB	The widest flow visible on 1. May 1999 after the end of evening twilight. Behind you can just see a second flow, even though it is almost hidden by a lateral dam of solid lava. If you look carefully you can also see twinkling lights of towns along the coast of the Ionean Sea. 1.0 MB	Close-up of the same flow shown in the two clips above. Note the miniature tower of solid lava inthe foreground. Watching this show from close up and feeling the radiance of the molten rock was quite an experience! Nevertheless: It's time for Etna to stop feeding the lava flows and to return to some spectacular eruptive activity like in 1998! 0.9 MB
File sizes: Since we wanted individual details to remain visible, we could not reduce the image resolution too much. In order to keep file sizes down we had to digitize the movies using quite a slow frame rate of 12 per second. This leads to a slighly jercky movement. Video: J. Alean, R. Carniel

Video clips 1. May 1999