Italy 2004

If you’d asked me a year ago where in the world I would most like to go, Italy would not have been at the top of the list. It’s not that I had anything against the place; I’d just never had a burning desire to go there. In truth, I knew little about it, and my Italian vocabulary was limited to such words as “spaghetti,” “linguini,” “mozzarella,” and other food-related terms. I had certainly failed to view it as geologically interesting, aside from the (in)famous Mount Vesuvius, though this was largely ignorance on my part, since Italy’s geology is in fact fascinating. But in June of 2004, all this would change when Whitman geology and environmental studies professor Bob Carson led a ten-day trip to visit five of southern Italy’s most famous volcanoes. As a geology major with a keen interest in volcanology, I could not pass up this opportunity.

Italy is a geological conundrum in itself. Initially, Italy’s volcanoes were thought to originate from the subduction of the African plate (to the south) beneath the Eurasian plate (to the north). The simplified “textbook” explanation of subduction says that as the subducting slab enters Earth’s semi-molten mantle, the slab begins to melt, resulting in magma which then rises through the crust to form volcanoes. In reality, of course, this is a great deal more complicated. The very potassic magmatic nature of the volcanoes of central and southern Italy, however, is not typical of subduction-type volcanoes, and some geologists now postulate back-arc rifting as a more plausible cause, although the possibility of crustal contamination of subduction-generated magma has not been ruled out. Additionally, while subduction is a convergent and therefore compressional process, GPS monitoring shows that there is active spreading and extension in the region of the Adriatic Sea. All in all, there have been many attempts to explain Italy’s geology, but none of them are conclusive, and what exactly is going on remains a mystery. Suffice it to say, however, that there are volcanoes, many of them active, so a geological something, or perhaps many geological somethings, is going on.

After a long flight and very little sleep, two other Whitman students and I arrived in Naples, where we awaited the arrival of the rest of our group, who had spent ten days in Bulgaria and were flying into Naples a few hours later. Our first surprise came when, as we were sitting outside the airport staring dazedly into space, Chris and I were approached by a man who seemed to know who we were and who introduced himself as our volcano guide, “Andrea” (pronounced on-DRAY-uh). It took our sleep-addled brains a few seconds to process this and come to the realization that, based on the “Andrea” we had been corresponding with via e-mail, we had been expecting a female guide. We were comforted to hear that this was not the first time that Andrea’s patrons had been expecting a woman, and had a good laugh when the rest of the group arrived, looked right past our guide, and asked, “Where’s Andrea?”

We spent our first night in cabins at Solfatara, a 4000-year-old active volcano within the Phlegraean Fields, a volcanic area north of Naples. Unlike most volcanoes, Solfatara is not cone-shaped and mountain-like; rather, it is a wide, flat caldera similar to Yellowstone, though less extensive. The smell of sulfur from the fumaroles was overpowering, though as we discovered later in our trip this was nothing compared to the rotten-egg stink of Vulcano. The Romans were well aware of the beneficial properties of this natural “sauna”; the sulfurous vapors were said to cure everything from respiratory problems to skin diseases, and in the latter part of the 1800s two small caves were dug into the crater wall (and later covered with masonry) above fumaroles to serve as sweat houses. Solfatara also boasts pools of boiling mud, and in places the ground is almost too hot to touch. Spending the night in an active caldera was exciting, though we were reassured that, if it were about to erupt, it would give plenty of advance warning, including rising of the caldera floor by many meters as the magma chamber filled.

The second day of our trip took us to Mount Vesuvius, perhaps Italy’s most famous volcano, which in 79 AD buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum during a massive pyroclastic eruption. Vesuvius is actually comprised of two volcanoes—Monte Somma, an ancient volcano that was much larger than the present-day Vesuvius, and Monte Vesuvio, which grew up within the old Somma crater and which now towers above the remains of Somma’s walls, which border it to the north and east. Unfortunately for us, the weather was dreary, and low clouds obscured part of the mountain. We traveled partway up the volcano by bus on a narrow, winding road, and then hiked the rest of the way to the top, politely declining to purchase walking sticks from vendors along the trail. We gazed into the crater from a viewpoint, and could see within the crater walls pyroclastics and lava flows deposited during past eruptions and exposed in cross-section, just like the textbook illustrations of stratovolcanoes. Visitors are not usually allowed to go to the summit, but after much haggling Andrea found a guide who would lead us there (though a volcano guide himself, Andrea was not allowed to lead us alone). Our guide showed us one of the many monitoring stations that keep a constant watch for any changes in Vesuvius, including any seismic activity and bulging or growth of the volcano, which may be warning signs of an imminent eruption. We then ventured a very short way down from the crater rim to observe some fumaroles, whose heat we welcomed as it was getting windy and chilly. The rain hit us just as we reached the summit, and Bob and Andrea had to usher us away from taking the requisite photographs of each other atop the summit, as we were dangerously exposed to lightning. So we hurried onward around the rest of the crater and back to the bus, stopping only to search briefly for the euhedral (perfectly-shaped) pyroxene crystals for which Vesuvius is famous.

Vesuvius has not erupted since 1944, and based on its eruptive history has been in an overlong period of quiescence. This has led volcanologists to believe that if it should erupt today, it could produce a devastating pyroclastic eruption. It has been estimated that at least a week’s notice would be needed in order to evacuate the more than three million people who live within the volcano’s blast radius, assuming that all public transportation is up and running. Unfortunately, most of the people who live in the volcano’s shadow have come to regard it as fairly innocuous, and government-sponsored evacuation drills have failed to awaken them to the potential danger.

A proper visit to Vesuvius would not be complete without visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum as well, so we left Vesuvius just as the weather started to clear and drove to Pompeii, where we had four hours to look around. I had not realized just how big Pompeii is, and four hours was only a fraction of the time it would take to appreciate the city in its entirety—akin to trying to see all of the Louvre in a day! Pompeii is a maze, mind-bogglingly full of walls, rooms, and narrow streets. A huge amphitheater, surprisingly intact, sits at the edge of the city, its ancient seats now playing host to myriad wildflowers instead of gladiatorial spectators. Many of the streets, rutted by chariot wheels, have stepping stones over which citizens could cross so as not to set foot in the dirty streets. Frescoes adorn walls, and intricate mosaics still decorate the floors of the more affluent residences. Fountains, statues, and elaborate Corinthian columns still stand in places, and clay urns can be found in abundance. Pompeii is a marvel, for it was preserved in amazing detail by the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption, and has been likened to a “snapshot” of a moment in the life of a Roman city. Instead of destroying the city, the volcano buried it in pumice and ash, which then hardened to a kind of cement, encasing and protecting all it had buried. Most deaths in Pompeii resulted from asphyxiation by ash-laden air and deadly gases released by the volcano’s vents, although some people were felled by flying rocks and roofs collapsing under the weight of volcanic debris.

Pompeii is perhaps most famous for the body casts of citizens who did not escape burial; as people and animals fell from asphyxiation, a covering of fine ash entombed them where they lay. The ashy mixture hardened around the bodies, and the peoples’ remains eventually rotted away, leaving perfect casts of them as they were at the moment of death. Archaeological excavation of Pompeii began in 1748, but was unsystematic and consisted mainly of the looting and plundering of sculptures, art, and other valuables to be sold on the black market. In 1864 archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli imposed more systematic methods of excavation. He discovered the casts and devised a means of forcibly injecting them with a plaster solution. Once the plaster had hardened, the volcanic casing could be removed and the plaster casts—which replicated the bodies in fine detail, including outlines of clothing, hair, and agonized facial expressions—could be removed. This unique preservation of people as they went about their lives has allowed for detailed reconstruction of both everyday life in a Roman town and an hour-by-hour account of the eruption itself. From the number of people killed, it is apparent that either Pompeii’s citizens had little time to evacuate, or failed to take the eruption seriously, as they had not witnessed such an event before. One of the most poignant of the many casts, in my opinion, is that of a guard dog who was chained to a stake, unable to escape and writhing in agony from asphyxiation and burial. Other casts show mothers sheltering their children with their own bodies, people pressing cloths to their faces in futile attempts to breathe, and groups huddled together, seeking what refuge and comfort they could.

Herculaneum, a seaside village much smaller than Pompeii and our final stop of the day, faced a different, though just as intriguing, fate. Despite its closer proximity to the volcano, wind direction spared it from the noxious gases that proved the downfall of Pompeii. Herculaneum instead fell victim to a series of nuées ardentes (hot, high-speed pyroclastic flows) and lahars (mudflows), which churned down the mountainside and buried the town in up to 18 meters of consolidated ash and debris. Many buildings and sculptures were razed to the ground, but in some places the flow oozed more slowly into buildings without disturbing their contents. It scorched but did not ruin cloth and wood, carbonizing it instead. Some foodstuffs and objects, including eggshells and even wax tablets, were preserved and remained safely buried until excavation centuries later. It was previously believed that most of Herculaneum’s citizens managed to escape their town’s destruction, but excavation of a boathouse in 1982 revealed hundreds of victims who fled to the shore and sought to escape by sea. The modern-day city of Ercolano sits atop still-unexcavated portions of ancient Herculaneum, and one wonders what undiscovered treasures may still lie buried there.

The type of eruption that so abruptly ended the lives of the citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum is called a Plinian eruption after Pliny the Younger, who witnessed the eruption from Misenium on the Bay of Naples and described it in great detail, providing us with the first detailed account of an eruption of this type. Plinian eruptions are explosive and catastrophic, characterized by a tall eruptive column that resembles the trunk of a tree and reaches into the stratosphere before spreading out into what, in the age of the atomic bomb, would be called a mushroom cloud. It is estimated that this particular eruption produced an ash column 33 kilometers tall, in addition to many cubic kilometers of ejecta.

That night, we boarded an overnight ferry for the volcanic island of Stromboli, spending the night in pairs in cramped but functional cabins. We were scheduled to arrive at the island at 5:30 in the morning, and awoke early in hopes of seeing the volcano erupting, only to find that it was shrouded in mist. But we were not to be totally disappointed, for as the almost-full moon slipped away, a blood-red sun rose to greet the day. The mist soon burned off, and as we neared the island we could see steam rising from the crater. The town looked so very Mediterranean, with white stucco buildings and lush sub-tropical vegetation; this laid-back seaside village was a welcome change from the bustling metropolis of Naples and the Italian mainland. We disembarked and wound our way through narrow streets to find our hotel, a lovely place with myriad balconies and terraces and open, breezy rooms. Stromboli is currently in a state of constant eruption, and every fifteen minutes or so we would see mini-eruptions of ash and steam rise from the crater. We took a late-afternoon hike partway up the volcano’s flank (the summit was closed due to the volcano’s increased activity). The first two-thirds of the walk was along a rough cobblestone road, which Andrea informed us had been built to transport Ingrid Bergman up the mountain during the filming of the movie “Stromboli” (Bergman refused to walk). As we climbed higher, distant rumblings and a slight shaking of the ground accompanied the volcano’s periodic puffs of ash and steam. We found ourselves at a spectacular viewpoint overlooking the “Sciara del Fuoco,” a broad, steep scree slope down which rocks tumble every time the mountain shakes. The rocks, boulders really, skip and bounce down the slope, gaining momentum, before being launched into the air and arcing gracefully into the sea with great plops and splashes. As darkness fell, the eruptions became more spectacular, as the fountains of fiery lava became visible against the inky blackness. We watched in awe as the volcano erupted, each eruption sending new rocks cascading down the Sciara. After five or so eruptions, and with great reluctance, we turned on our headlamps and began the winding descent, stopping occasionally to view an eruption or watch other groups descending, their headlamps making them look like trains of fireflies. This incredible day ended with each of us eating an entire pizza for dinner, our first taste of authentic Italian pizza, so different and so much better than the doughy, soggy messes in which Pizza Hut takes so much pride.

Just offshore of Stromboli is Strombolicchio, the volcanic neck that is all that remains of Stromboli’s predecessor. (A volcanic neck forms when lava cools and solidifies in the volcano’s main conduit, and remains standing after the rest of the mountain has been eroded away.) With the morning free, a group of us decided to rent kayaks and make our way to this small island. The brilliant blue-green water was so clear that we could see hundreds of tiny jellyfish floating by (the jellyfish, or “jellies” as Andrea called them, made for interesting swimming and a few minor stings). Getting from the kayak onto the island was no easy task, as there is no dock but simply a staircase rising from the water. The waves and swells made timing critical, as it was easy to capsize if you shifted your weight at the wrong time (as I found out as we left Strombolicchio, when I capsized twice). Navigating the stairs was made more difficult by an angry pair of gulls, guarding their nest and dive-bombing intruders, but the view from the top was well worth it. We then took a quick swim with the “jellies” around the island, becoming quite startled when a spear fisherman swam by towing a dead, bloody fish, which almost rammed us.

We spent the latter part of the day taking a catamaran ride partway around Stromboli to visit the town of Ginostra. This small town has only about 25 full-time inhabitants; most of the villas are vacation homes owned by Europeans. The town only recently acquired (solar) electricity. The vegetation here is much more desert-like, due to Ginostra’s drier climate, and we hiked carefully around cacti and through the tiny village to the other side of the Sciara Del Fuoco, where we again watched rocks roll and bounce into the sea. Ginostra boasts the “world’s smallest harbor,” located down a steep path from the village, and the main transport of luggage and other goods to and from the harbor is by donkey. We boarded the catamaran once again, planning to motor around to the Sciara, eat dinner, and once again watch the volcano erupt by night. The boat’s engine refused to start, however, and it took the better part of an hour to get it going again, with everybody giving it a try. We started to set off, only to find that our anchor was stuck, and Antonio, our captain, reluctantly had to cut the rope. By the time it was fully dark (after another spectacular sunset), I was torn between what to look at—the volcano’s glowing eruptions, the innumerable unobstructed stars, or the bioluminescence caused by microorganisms in the water. We stirred the water to enhance this effect and watched jellyfish glide by, outlined in an eerie green light.

In the morning we left Stromboli with much regret, traveling by hydrofoil (basically, a boat on skis) to the larger and more touristy island of Lipari, another of the Aeolian Isles. We did some preliminary exploring of the town, visiting some interesting museums and an exquisite old church. Andrea then led us on a walk through pumice and obsidian flows; the pumice, which is hundreds of feet thick in places, is mined there.

We boarded a small motor boat the next morning for a boat tour of Lipari’s coast, including sea stacks, sea caves, and many more opportunities to swim with the “jellies.” We continued on to Vulcano, the type locality for which all volcanoes are named, and hiked to the top of this perfectly conical, fairly small volcano. The sulfurous gas from the fumaroles along the crater rim was overpowering, stinging our eyes and burning our throats, but we braved it in order to closely examine and collect samples of the neon yellow sulfur crystals that formed around each vent. The crater itself is perfectly circular and equidimensional, in Bob’s words a “textbook” example. We ascended a well-maintained trail, but for our descent Andrea taught us how to “glissade” down the scree slope by bending our knees, rocking forward, and bounding down the mountain in great leaps, one foot at a time, planting heel first and sliding a distance on the loose rocks before leaping again. Tremendous fun! Near the foot of Vulcano is a large mud pit, which is prized for its therapeutic properties, and a great number of people were wallowing around in it, covered in mud and stinking of sulfur.

The next morning we boarded yet another ferry for our final destination: Sicily. From there, we piled on to a bus and drove to our next accommodation, the “northern refuge,” a cozy hotel partway up Mount Etna’s north slope. Just up the road from the hotel is some derelict vacation property and an old wall, shaken and cracked by an earthquake and overrun by a lava flow a couple of years ago. The real effort began the next day, when we set out for an all-day hike partway around and up the mountain. We encountered multiple basalt flows, dating from the early 1900s to the more recent 2001-2002 flows. The majority of the lava is of the aa type, sharp and jagged, but we also encountered some ropy pahoehoe lava, smoother and resembling giant cow pies or the crinkled skin on partially-cooled custard. A cross-country hike across the lava took us to a lava tube, which blasted us with frigid air as we descended into its mouth. After following the cave for quite a length and marveling at the “lavacicles” on the ceiling, we gladly re-emerged into the warm outside air. We continued through the lava fields, climbing up and around cinder cones and examining volcanic bombs of all types and sizes. One of the more interesting volcanic features is “La Boutonniere” (“the buttonholes”), a straight line of small craters and spatter cones that, from above, resembles the buttonholes on a shirt. We wended our way onward and upward, and eventually found ourselves amidst some barren white-gold trees, stripped of their leaves and bark and killed by the lava that had engulfed their roots. They stood out in sharp contrast against the black lava; some of the trees even had lava bombs nestled in their branches, where they had been caught as they fell. Farther on we came to what (little) was left of the ski resort, which was overcome by the most recent lava flow. Just the tops of the chairlift towers stuck out above the lava, attesting to the thickness of the flow. A resort hotel was bulldozed, twisted, and almost completely buried, and the street of shops and restaurants was gone entirely. Ironically, they were already in the process of re-building the lifts and ski runs, despite the fact that these will almost certainly be destroyed again in the next eruption.


(Mt. Etna: North Flank)	(Mt. Etna: Summit)

On the next, and last, day of our trip, we were determined to summit the mountain. A bus took us partway up, to the snowline at about 2400 meters elevation. Andrea gave us some quick pointers on how to navigate snowfields, and we began our ascent. When we reached the Northeast Crater, we discovered that steam blasts were making the route to the true summit too treacherous. So we climbed up the other “summit,” which is just slightly lower. We began our descent just in time, for we were hit with a ferocious hailstorm, which made traversing the icy snow even more difficult, as visibility was very low. In our haste we stumbled upon another crater (Bocca Nuova) which engulfed us with sulfur gas when the wind shifted, prompting us to run downward despite Andrea’s repeated warnings to never run from a volcano if we didn’t know the route. Although the hail made part of our hike miserable, it also served to highlight the contours of the volcanic topography, making for a stunning panorama. A driving rain, complete with thunder and lightning, started just as we reached a small shelter, where we sought refuge sardine-fashion with what seemed like every other person on the mountain. Figuring that we couldn’t possibly get any wetter, we left the crush of people and continued downward, glissading every chance we got. We paid brief visits to a few small craters, one of which, Andrea joked, is known as the “Swiss crater” because there are four large, spherical lava bombs perfectly spaced and balanced on the crater rim, as if executed with Swiss precision. We also came across two beautiful accretionary lava balls, which form by lava rolling over the top of a flow, picking up additional lava and growing in size much as a snowball does. We arrived at our final destination and last night as a group at the “southern refuge,” a much larger and less cozy hotel than the northern one.

After dinner, Andrea led a small group of us on a short walk to a viewpoint from which we could look down on the lights of the Sicilian city of Catania. We sat in silence, reflecting on the past few days and wishing it could last forever. Thus ended the last night of an extraordinary trip, one which will never be forgotten and which helped me fall deeply in love with Italy.

( Accretionary Lava Ball
Mt. Etna, South Flank)

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Volcanoes Galore!