Flank eruption of july, 17th , 2001

Once more, here we go, the hard core, towards Etna. This time, and although I was there 2 months ago, we absolutely cannot miss it. Whereas all the demonstrations observed until now occurred only on the summit craters at more than 3000 m, the system of North-South fractures which followed the tremors allows the output of the lava at 2100 m, very close to the road and Sapienza. The four of us left to Catane, via Rome: Alain, Bruno, Crilibi, and Jean-Louis your webmaster.

Text will undoubtedly come later. For the moment, here are the images They come from my Camedia and are available for certain (brown rectangle) in their maximum resolution, i.e. 640 X 480. Well yes, it starts to get old! An sorry, it is without optimization for the pages: quite heavy to load!.

I have also small video shots which you can download by clicking on the links below:

• Phreato-magmatic explosion at the 2100m fissure (526Kb)

• Night explosion at the laghetto (new montagnola) (449Kb)

• The 4 of us, at night, on red background at 2100m (1.825K)

• The eruptive fissure of 2100m at night (2.082Kb)

COM: Centro Operativo Misto...	Interresting maps	But what we want is our pass to the summit!	Map of volcanic hazards. We are at Nicolosi
	Finally, after more than 6 hours of waiting... Il mongibello	The 2100m eruptive fissure, from where comes the flow threatening Nicolosi
Selfportrait...	Here is the plume which sprays over Catania		Hello, all is fine, I'm sun tanning
Gastrorandonneurs (gastrowalkers). You'll understand why later..	Start to understand?	After the beer, we get up.	There is even guarda civile up the mountain.
Bulldozers never stop		Come on, avanti!
The new vent, north of the Montagnola. You see the top station of cable car	The 2550m vent with phreato-magmatic explosions	The 'gastro' part of the walk...	Miam!
Errrrr, gimme the salt!	Fabulous show	Didn't I heard someting, there?
	Cheers!!		It is Mandarine Napoléon. Yes!
Comfy on Etna, no?	South-east cone as background
Cable car station again	South east cone We will not go up there...	After sunset, the explosions start to glow red...	And we see a new cone, east of the south-east cone (Pizzi dei Neri?)
We have a better view from there	The fracture at the Sudestino glows	We go down along the lava flow	Crilibi touches a red hot lava block. pshhhhh!
This one passed 1 metre from me. Hot!			Alain + hurry + bad torch light = fall down!
What we had left for breakfast. Finally, the caffè was open, and we had croissants and capuccini!	Back to Catania, at the fish market. It was raining ashes...	one protects as one can.
At the airport with Frank Pothé (center) back from a 'Spécial eruption'	The mess at the airport as all the flight are cancelled...	Because of the 'cenere vulcanica, tutti' flights will be	'ritardi o calcellati' . So, we gain (at least) one extran day of forced holliday
And here is the guilty:	The ash plume

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