LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Etna: Mount Etna
built 630 days ago
Etna is an isolated peak about 18 miles (29 km) from Catania which dominates the eastern side of Sicily. Its shape is that of a truncated cone with a ragged top, which is actually a complex of large volcanic cones hosting four summit craters. Around 260 smaller craters, formed by flank eruptions, occupy the slopes. On the southeastern side of Etna lies an immense gully, the Valle del Bove, which is between 2000-4000 ft (600-1200 m) deep and over 3 miles (5 km) wide. Many of Etna's subsidiary craters reside within this cleft, which is thought to have been created around 3,500 years ago by the collapse of an ancient caldera. The height of the mountain varies with its eruptions; until 1911, there was only one large cone and crater at the summit, but subsequent eruptions have created new craters and cones.
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Etna had been erupting for two weeks. It began on July 17, when the mountain shook with more than two thousand tremors. Rock was breaking deep within it, cracked and cloven by scalding gas and climbing magma. Within a week five vents had burst open on Etna's top and sides, spewing lava at 1,000 cubic feet a second.
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Like all the towns in the Scott Valley region of Siskiyou County, Etna has retained the flavor of the Gold Rush era, with numerous historic store fronts and period homes along Main St. and throughout town. The drug store at the top of Main St. was a Denny Bar Store, one of California's first chain stores. After a stop at the old-fashioned soda fountain, you can stroll through the miniature museum located in the huge walk-in safe. Scott Valley and the surrounding mountains have a long Gold Rush history, apparent in names and obvious in the historic look of the buildings still in use in each of this picturesque community.
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Over the last 2000 years, activity at Etna has been generally effusive, with occasional explosive eruptions from the summit. Its most destructive eruption during this time occurred in March 1669, when an estimated 830,000,000 m³ of pyroclastic material was ejected. The eruption was preceded by two months of increasingly powerful earthquakes centered on the southern slopes of the mountain, which eventually encouraged most villagers there to abandon their homes. On 11 March, a 9 km-long fissure opened up on the southern flank of the mountain, stretching from an elevation of 2,800 m down to 1,200 m. Activity steadily migrated downslope, and the largest vent eventually opened near the town of Nicolosi. The cinder cone built up at the erupting vent became known as Monti Rossi (red hills), and is still a prominent landmark today.
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Etna was known in Roman times as Aetna, a name thought to have derived either from the Greek word aitho ("to burn violently") or the Phoenician word attano. The Arabs called the mountain Gibel Utlamat ("the mountain of fire"); this name was later corrupted into Mons Gibel (literally 'Mount Mountain'). This seems to have developed into Etna's current local name Mongibello/Mongibeddu, under influence of the Italian word bello, meaning "beautiful" (beddu in Sicilian).
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Etna was known in Roman times as Aetna, a name thought to have derived either from the Greek word aitho ("to burn") or the earlier Phoenician word attano. The Arabs called the mountain Gibel Utlamat ("the mountain of fire"); later, this name evolved into Mons Gibel (translating from its Roman and Arab parts as 'Mountain Mountain', since such repetition in Sicilian denotes largeness or greatness) and subsequently Etna's current local name Mongibeddu.
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Mount Etna