Diagnostic Multidisciplinary Investigations for Cultural Heritage at Etna Volcano: A Case Study from the 1669 Eruption in the Mother Church at the Old Settlement of Misterbianco
Misterbianco is located on the southern flank of Mt. Etna (Unesco site), in eastern Sicily (Italy). This site, also known as Monasterium Album, has a long and tormented history linked with volcanic activity of Mt. Etna and regional seismicity. This site received much attention in the 2000s when excavation works brought to light a 14th century church remains below the thick layer of the 1669 lava. This study documents the first diagnostic multidisciplinary survey performed at this site 350 years after the eruption: the investigations were performed by using techniques such as ground-penetrating radar, infrared thermography, a terrestrial laser scanner and a drone survey to analyze the site’s…
Changes in SO2 Flux Regime at Mt. Etna Captured by Automatically Processed Ultraviolet Camera Data
We used a one-year long SO2 flux record, which was obtained using a novel algorithm for real-time automatic processing of ultraviolet (UV) camera data, to characterize changes in degassing dynamics at the Mt. Etna volcano in 2016. These SO2 flux records, when combined with independent thermal and seismic evidence, allowed for capturing switches in activity from paroxysmal explosive eruptions to quiescent degassing. We found SO2 fluxes 1.5−2 times higher than the 2016 average (1588 tons/day) during the Etna’s May 16−25 eruptive paroxysmal activity, and mild but detectable SO2 flux increases more than one month before its onset. The SO2 flux typically peaked during a lava fo…
Understanding the SO 2 degassing budget of Mt Etna’s paroxysms: First clues from the december 2015 sequence
The persistent open-vent activity of basaltic volcanoes is periodically interrupted by spectacular but hazardous paroxysmal explosions. The rapid transition from quiescence to explosive eruption poses a significant challenge for volcanic hazard assessment and mitigation, and improving our understanding of the processes that trigger these paroxysmal events is critical. Although magmatic gas is unquestionably the driver, direct measurements of a paroxysm’s gas flux budget have remained challenging, to date. A particularly violent paroxysmal sequence took place on Etna on December 2015, intermittently involving all summit craters, especially the Voragine (VOR) that had previously displayed no…