BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Volcanology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1606006
The intense explosive activity of lava fountain sequences from Voragine crater at Etna volcano: new insights through high-precision borehole strain recordings
Provisionally accepted
- National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Section of Catania, Catania, Italy
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Mount Etna is well known for its frequent lava fountains, or paroxysms, characterized by their intense explosive activity. Over the past decades, the Southeast Crater has been the most prolific, generating over a hundred events. More recently, three sequences of particularly powerful lava fountains were erupted from the Voragine Crater: four episodes between 3 and 5 December 2015, three between 18 and 21 May 2016, and six between 4 July and 15 August 2024. This intense eruptive activity, accompanied by significant ash dispersal and fallout, severely impacted the infrastructure and accessibility of eastern Sicily, causing disruptions to air services and the temporary closure of Catania's international airport. In this study, we investigated these intriguing phenomena through the high-precision strain data recorded by Etna's network of borehole dilatometers. We modelled and interpreted the source of these paroxysmal events, examining its position, the magnitude of its volumetric change during the paroxysms, and its relationship with the volcano's plumbing system, thereby advancing our understanding of these dynamic processes.
Keywords: Etna volcano, Lava fountains, volcano monitoring, Borehole strainmeters, Eruption modeling
Received: 04 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bonaccorso, Carleo, Currenti and Sicali. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Luigi Carleo, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Section of Catania, Catania, Italy
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