Mount Etna Estate Agents

Mount Etna is a nonexplosive stratovolcano. So according to all our information, Mount Etna is not a killer volcano. The lava moves slowly giving people a chance to escape. Only 73 people died in its recorded history ever since 1500 B.C.Even though the lava moves slowly, it does a lot of property damage. It propably would be safe to live near Mount Etna if you don't mind an eruption once in a while.

Etna: The stuff of myths

Reproduction of a fresco showing the 1669 eruption of Mount Etna

By BBC News Online's Tamar Shiloh

"An angry, ancient monster, trapped for thousands of years under the 3,315-metre-high Mount Etna, periodically loses his temper and spurts out spectacular columns of fire from one of its 100 dragon heads.

Yea, how often have we seen
Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,
In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,
And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!

Virgil

This, according to one Greek myth, explains the eruptions of the highest, most active volcano in Europe.

Etna (its name derives from the Greek word aitho, or "I burn"), towers above Catania, on the eastern coast of Sicily.

Its geological characteristics indicate that it has been active for more than two-and-a-half million years.

Great mythology

For the ancient Greeks, the mountain housed the workshop of Hephaestus, otherwise known as Vulcan, the god of fire and metalwork, and was home to the giant one-eyed monster, Cyclops.

Greek mythology said Typhon, a monster with 100 dragon heads, was trapped under Etna

Another myth said that Typhon, a 100-headed monster who was the son of earth goddess Gaia, was trapped under Mount Etna by Zeus after he tried to rebel, and he has been spitting out his angry flames ever since.

Virgil described the volcano in The Georgics, written in 29 BC: "Yea, how often have we seen/Etna, her furnace-walls asunder riven,/In billowy floods boil o'er the Cyclops' fields,/And roll down globes of fire and molten rocks!"

And Homer placed the cave of Polyphemus, the Cyclops who captured Odysseus and his comrades, on Etna's slopes.

Long history

The volcano's first recorded eruption was in 1500 BC, and it is believed to have erupted about 200 times since."

Regional changes

Over the years, Mount Etna has caused regional deformation in the Etnean area because N-S compression dominated, causing the subduction of the African tectonic plate under the Eurasian plate.

Are people still living there?

There are still people living in the slopes of the volcano because there is rich, fertile, soil deposited by volcanic ash that is good for vineyards.

Interesting facts:

Mount Etna is in Sicily, Italy and stands at 3,329 meters tall. It is the second largest volcano in Europe and has the largest eruptions. It is also the highest mountain in Italy, south of the Alps.