Mt. Etna Blows its Top

Volcanic activity on Mount Etna has been traced as far back as a half a million years ago. It has been going strong ever since. The latest instance: On the evening of January 11, 2001, news outlets reported tremors around Mount Etna. Within 24 hours, lava was flowing toward the western wall of the Valle del Bove. As lava shot hundreds of feet into the air, an ash plume forced the closure of the nearby Fontanarossa Airport.

MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's Terra satellite photographed the east coast of Sicily and of Mount Etna as it began sending up ash and steam on January 11, just prior to the lava eruption.

Lava overflowing from the eastern rim of the erupting pit crater of Mount Etna, Jan. 12, 2011

This image provided by the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology shows a strombolian explosion from the active pit crater on the east flank of the Southeast Crater cone of Mount Etna Wednesday evening of Jan. 12, 2011 as seen from Piano del Vescovo, at 1375 m elevation on the southeast flank of Etna.

Mt. Etna's erutions photographed from the International Space Station in 2002.

A 3-D view of Mount Etna with vegetation largely stripped away, imaged by a pair of radar imaging satellites, TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X.

A March 29 2007 photo of ash and steam rising from Mount Etna. The volcano spouted a 'fountain of lava' before slipping back into its fitful slumber, a spokesman for Italy's vulcanology institute said at the time. The eruption, a fountain of lava, lasted about an hour and happened in an uninhabited area.

Lava flowed down the mountain sides and ash shot into the sky on November 26, 2002. Local relief workers had to use bulldozers to build a wall of earth to protect the tourist facilities on the volcano's southeast flank.

Lava and ash lava shoot into the sky as Mt. Etna erupts on October 30, 2002

The lava of the Etna volcano crosses the road and passes in front of a restaurant, in the night of 26 - 27 July 2001.

Smoke and ash combine to create a plume extending from the erupting volcano July 22, 2001 on Mt. Etna.