The supervolcano of the Phlegraean Fields near Naples had taken a break after months of high earthquake activity. Since Thursday, one earthquake has followed the next. The fear of an outbreak is back.
Pozzuoli – In the summer, the supervolcano of the Phlegraean Fields in southern Italy terrorized the residents of the Bay of Pozzuoli on the western outskirts of Naples with seemingly endless earthquakes. The shocks repeatedly drove people onto the streets in the middle of the night. In June and August the earth shook over 1,000 times in the region and over 600 times in September. There were days when it shook over 100 times. The shocks reached a magnitude of 4.2. Thank God there was only minor damage.
Italian supervolcano has potential for mega-disaster
The Phlegraean Fields are a huge Ice Age volcanic crater with a diameter of 16 kilometers, which erupted several times in prehistoric times, severely devastating the entire present-day province of Campania and destroying life for dozens of kilometers around.
It even influenced the climate worldwide and, according to a scientific theory, is said to have accelerated the extinction of the Neanderthals. For around 40,000 years there have only been relatively small eruptions within this giant crater, which are evidenced by dozens of lakes and hills – most recently in 1538.
In addition to the incessant swarms of earthquakes, continuous uplift of the earth’s surface around the port city of Pozzuoli also caused great concern. The authorities explained this not with magma rising directly beneath the earth’s surface, but with hot gases and water that were heated above a deeper magma chamber. In October it suddenly became strangely quiet around the supervolcano. The earth sometimes only shook once a day and usually so weakly that people didn’t feel it.
Supervolcano ends quake break with violent shock – video camera records everything
But on Thursday evening the supervolcano returned with a violent shock, and since then one quake has followed the next: around 7:41 p.m., the residents of the region felt the quake, which the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) gave a magnitude of 3.1 on the Richter scale. The shock was felt particularly in Pozzuoli, but also in the neighboring towns of Quarto and Bacoli and also in some districts of Naples. And like so many times before, the quake was accompanied by a loud roar. The epicenter was near the Solfatara volcanic crater, known as a tourist attraction for its hot springs, on the border between Pozzuoli and Naples. A surveillance camera recorded everything shaking on a terrace.
The shock had already been announced by smaller earthquakes, and by Friday (November 24th) at eleven o’clock, 22 earthquakes had been registered within 24 hours, seven of which were above magnitude one. Over 1,145 residents of the area reported to the INGV that they felt the shocks.
“Like a balloon about to burst”
Fear is spreading again in the Facebook group “Those from the Red Zone of the Phlegraean Fields”: “This means that the activity has unfortunately resumed,” writes one user. “It’s actually starting again,” said one user. A Carlo C.: types: “It’s kind of like something pushing a door. The pressure was strong for a long time, then it went away, but it didn’t stop. Sooner or later the door will shake again.”
The slowdown in the rise of the ground in recent weeks may have been caused by the fact that it has now lost its elasticity. And so even with constant pressure, the stiffness of the floor is no longer the same as before. “Like a balloon that, when inflated, increases in volume, but then reaches a certain point where it no longer inflates.” Everyone knows that the balloon then bursts shortly afterwards…
Experts warn that the Phlegraean fields are like neighboring Vesuvius ripe for an outbreak are.
#Italys #supervolcano #break