Etna Has Its 18th Eruption of 2011

If you were a betting man and wanted to play the safe money on picking a volcanic eruption, few volcanoes would be better to pick than Etna in 2011*. The Italian volcano had its 18th eruptive event ("paroxysm" in the words of Dr. Boris Behncke and Osservatorio Etneo) and it was almost a photocopy of many of the previous 17 events that have occurred during the calendar year. We had ash emissions! We had lava spatter and fountaining! We had lava flows! It was classic Etna -- an energetic yet brief show of the volcanic power from the southeast crater of the volcano. The lava flow (see below) stayed on the path of previous eruptions of 2011, reaching nearly 4 km downslope when all was said and done. Eruptions reader Pgen Pgen created a timelapse of the eruption using the INGV thermal webcam where you can see the volcano go from quiet to eruption and back to quiet. However, be sure to check out