THE BIG SMOKER
Mount Etna on Sicily is one of the most active volcanos of Europe. The last eruption catalogued on Wikipedia was on the morning of 14 August 2023. In February 2024, Etna started to blow smoke rings into the air in massive numbers. The phenomenon was observed and photographed not only by locals, but by many tourists as well. Boris Behncke, a volcanologist of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Catania, stressed that “no volcano on Earth produces so many vapour rings as Etna – we have known this for some time. In 2000, and again from July 2023, the crater Bocca Nuova has released thousands such rings, and continues to do so. In the late afternoon of 2 April, a small vent opened on the north-eastern rim of the southeast crater, which produces ejaculations of incandescent gas. On the next morning it was clear that these resulted in an impressive amount of vapour rings. This activity has been ongoing since. It must have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of these beautiful figures.” Giornale di Sicila, 5 Apr 2024.
