lava flows Archives

Mt Etna’s 1792 eruption

Posted on 13/03/2023 by Grazia Musumeci

There are paintings in memory of this event which, due to its violence and spectacularity, at the end of the 18th century, really made one think of the Apocalypse. While in France the new vision of the modern world was forming after the bloody revolution, in Bourbon Sicily there were moments of fear. In 1792, […]

Acireale and the Timpa lava plateau

Posted on 05/03/2023 by Grazia Musumeci

The people of Acireale solemnly call it “the” Timpa. But to be exact this escarpment that flows into the sea is part of a system of different “timpas”, that is “cliffs” – in Sicilian – formed by lava rocks. However, the one of Acireale is certainly among the most majestic and for this reason it […]

About Mount Etna’s eruption of 1669

Posted on 30/01/2023 (30/01/2023) by Grazia Musumeci

It was a hundred and twenty-two days of apocalypse on earth. And the chronicles handed down from father to son still speak of it as one of the greatest eruptions ever recorded in the modern era. That of 1669, on the southern slope of Mount Etna, still remains today a grandiose natural event, devastating but […]

Dagale of Etna, “miracle-oases from Allah”

Posted on 08/01/2023 by Grazia Musumeci

When they take you to explore the beauties of Mount Etna you will see many of them. But maybe you won’t notice if your guide doesn’t point them out to you. They are the “dagale”, islands of green surrounded by black lava. Small oases that seem to have been spared from the fury of the […]

Lake of Nicito, life and death of a volcanic lake

Posted on 03/12/2022 (03/12/2022) by Grazia Musumeci

If today you walk through Santa Maria di Gesù square in Catania, among large shady trees, crazy traffic and concrete buildings, you would hardly believe that once, here, there was only a huge expanse of lava. And that even before the lava arrived, a lake existed right here. A lake that wasn’t even supposed to […]