Etna Keeps Up the Pace in 2012 with Another Eruption

Italy's Etna kept up its frenetic pace of eruptions that started in January 2011 with yet another paroxysm, its fifth of 2012. This one had inkling that might be happen soon with signs on Friday, but the real show occurred overnight on Sunday (April 1) with an early morning eruption. This eruption followed 14 days since the last eruptive spell and lasted about 1.5 hours, producing the sorts of volcanic events we've come to expect from Etna: fire fountains, ash fall and lava flows. Dr. Boris Behncke posted some great images of the activity (see above) and Etna Walk also posted some great images and video as well. Eruptions readers caught a lot of the action via the webcams around Etna (see below). You can watch some of the timelapse of the activity put together by Eruptions reader Georaving that show the opening phases of strombolian explosions that give way to fire fountains and lava flows. Spectacular action all around!