Sicily ’s Mount Etnabegan eruptinga becoming amount of lava – pepper with the episodic ash chromatography column – towards the end of February of this year , and plenty have gathered around it to watch the fireworks . ABBC News teamhappened to get a small bit too close to it today , though , and a sudden plosion almost learn them out .
As tweeted by the BBC ’s Global Science Correspondent Rebecca Morelle , lava and steam erupted from somewhere near the summit as they were gad around there . Superheated careen and ash tree flew towards them and a few multitude nearby , but thankfully – despite a few injuries – everyone ’s alive and well .
“ escape down a mountain pelted by rocks , dodging combust bowlder and boiling steam – not an experience I ever ever need to recapitulate , ” Morelletweetedearlier today .
This type of volcanic plosion sounds a great deal like aphreatomagmatic flak , which involves weewee interact with lava . If you just pour lava onto urine or glass , the lava let off a bit of steam and that ’s about it . When lava push through into water along a divergent plate bound ( see : Mid - Atlantic Ridge ) , the lava balloons externally , cool chop-chop , and again – that ’s about it .
However , if you wrap water up in lava – say , snow - thawing down into the volcanic territory and near or into some magma quite closely to the airfoil – something strange happens . The water work into vapor pretty quickly , which briefly acts as an insulating film between the relief of the water and the lava / magma .
This is bang as theLeidenfrost effect , and can be seen when you rain buckets a diminutive amount of water onto a very blistering kitchen stove .
This mechanism temporarily halt the water straightaway seethe . Eventually , though , the evaporation film collapses , and the temperature difference between the water system and the magma balances out rather quickly .
This sudden appearance of steam is dangerous enough , but when this happens within volcanic system , it ’s ordinarily underground . The add presence of a high pressure environment often leads to some volatile result , as was abide by today on Mount Etna .
Many masses have died as a result of these explosion in the past , specially when they destabilise the vent and thing escalate rather quickly . The BBC squad – and a 78 - year - sure-enough woman who was also there at the time – were very lucky to have escaped with their lives this time around .
If anything , it ’s clear that these adventurous reporters seem to have a better inherent aptitude of ego - preservation than some others might have . Takethis radical of skier , for model , who recently chase one of Etna ’s lava flows down a slope .
Today ’s blast and subsequent lava stream captured by ESA ’s Sentinel-2A satellite . ESA
