Tourists flock to see Etna blow smoke rings
Europe’s largest volcano is nicknamed Lady of the Rings after creating smoke circles in skies over Sicily
MOUNT ETNA, Europe’s largest active volcano, is delighting tourists and locals by blowing almost perfect circles of smoke into the blue skies over Sicily.
The smoke circles, known as volcanic vortex rings, are actually made of condensed gases and water vapour. They form when gases rise up from deep below the Earth’s surface and escape from inside the crater of a volcano.
Mount Etna is one of a handful of volcanoes around the world that produces the rings, and does so prolifically. The latest emissions, however, are exceptional, scientists said.
“No volcano produces so many rings of steam as Etna,” said Boris Behncke, a volcanologist at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Catania. “We have known this for quite some time but now it is beating all previous records.”
Mr Behncke, who has been studying the volcano and living close to it for the past 25 years, said a small vent opened on the north-east edge of the south-east crater last Tuesday and it began emitting puffs of incandescent gas. The next morning, it became clear that these puffs were creating “an impressive quantity” of vortex rings, he said.
The volcano has emitted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the spectacular rings since then, added Mr Behncke, who can see the volcano from his house in Tremestieri Etneo, near Catania.
Locals have dubbed the volcano Lady of the Rings. “I thought I had hallucinations. I had never seen anything so spectacular and beautiful,” said Angela Intruglio, from Mascali, a town at the foot of Mount Etna that had to be rebuilt after an eruption in 1928.
Experts say the unusual rings are harmless and aren’t necessarily a prelude to an imminent eruption. “It’s only an open conduit, of a circular shape, through which the gas is shot in a pulsing way,” said Mr Behncke. “It’s completely innocuous.”
At 11,000ft, Etna is the tallest volcano in Europe. Eruptions have been ongoing for half a million years, according to Mr Behncke’s institute, but the volcano only acquired its characteristic conical shape in the past 100,000 years.
The last major eruption was in May 2023, which forced airport authorities to halt flights at the nearby airport of Catania – a popular tourist hub.
Eruptions of lava produced a cloud of black volcanic ash and a layer of lapilli that fell on the city, causing disruption not only to air traffic but also on the roads. The same happened during eruptions in 2001 and 2002.
The Institute also said that thin volcanic dust can irritate people’s eyes, skin and throats, while crops can suffer irreversible damage due to the ashes and lapilli transported by the wind, in case of eruptions.
Many major eruptions have occurred over the past 100 years. In 1971, several villages were threatened by lava flows, which destroyed orchards and vineyards. Over the following decade, the volcano’s activity was almost continuous. In 1983, authorities set off dynamite to divert lava flows following an eruption which lasted four months.