My hotel room in Catania, Sicily sits on the flanks of Mount Etna. The room at my bed and breakfast lodging in Naples is 10 miles from the main crater of Mount Vesuvius. After walking to 5600 feet on Etna’s 11,000 foot mountainside, I began thinking about volcanoes. Then after walking Vesuvius’ crater’s edge at 3400 feet, I asked myself, why is an eruption from Vesuvius a greater concern to me than Etna?
Vesuvius is lower in height, less steam coming from its vents and 10 miles from Naples. Etna is higher in overall height, much more steam coming from its top with Catania plus a number of towns ringing this volcano.
They are 2 different types of volcanoes from what I am learning. Vesuvius erupts with volcanic rock the size of buses to the size of ash in a very hot eruption. Its debris would be thrown fast, many hundreds of miles per hour, and as far as 10 miles away. They predict Naples would be gone in 2.5 minutes! Therefore different colored-coded zones in Naples are how the scientists would warn any evacuation need. We saw the effect of this volcano having 12 feet of volcanic debris on Pompeii…. but Naples was spared that time. Are the scientists monitoring the seismic activity for both locations well enough?
My understanding regarding Etna’s volcanic action, it is magma, very hot molten material from a couple of miles in the earth’s center, erupting from this crater to flow down the volcano’s sides. Historical photos showed people packing their belongings as the lava flowed, which ultimately cools into basalt rock. It seems like quite a different scenario than Vesuvius.
Please, if you are a volcanologist or know more, add your understanding on how these volcanoes differ in their eruptions. There is so much to know but this has been my understanding so far.
When I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro 23 years ago I did not think about any of its volcanic action. It had been a dormant volcano for 360,000 years, thus no discussion about volcanoes. Since this visit in Italy, I am beginning to learn more about Vesuvius and Etna!