Mt. Etna Lava FLows

Earlier when I talked about Mt. Etna, I told of eruptions the mountain had had over the years. In 1971 there was a rather severe eruption, and when we got to Sicily in 1973 we went to sites where you could still see the flows. Below are some pictures of these sites. This first picture shows how the lava came rignt next to a house but did not destroy the house. All of these sites were still hot in 1973. This house was in the town of Fornazzo. Here you can see the flows as they went down a mountainside. If I remember correctly, the only things destroyed in this eruption were some vinyards and part of one house.

This is another picture of the lava as it flowed down the mountainside. It seemed they had "breaks" for the lava flows, as we have firebreaks in our forests. This lava had to flow for some time. Lava is extremely hot, molten rock, and very thick. It really does not travel really fast, and when you see it at night it glows. As dangerous as it is it is also beautiful at night. We were in Sicily when there was a small eruption of Mt. Etna and saw the lava as it went up in the air and came back down, just as you see on specials on television. Frequently while we were there you would feel minor tremors of the earth, but there was never anything major while we were in Sicily.