No reason to cancel your trip to Sicily – yet.
Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, is slowly sliding into the sea due to gravity, a movement which scientists warn could trigger a tsunami in the Mediterranean.
Research published in the online scientific magazine Science Advances presents evidence that Etna’s slide is likely being caused by a strong gravity pull on Etna’s lower underwater slopes. While scientists have always known that Etna is gradually heading towards the sea, it was previously thought that the volcano’s movements were being caused by a build-up of magma inside the core. A slide due to gravity is another matter – and a more dangerous one.
Data collected between April 2016 and July 2017 showed that the underwater slope remained relatively stable for the year, but then slid down four centimetres in just an eight-day period before it stabilised again.
"We know from other volcanoes in the geological record that these have collapsed catastrophically," first author and marine geodynamicist, Morelia Urlaub, told Live Science. "There is a hazard. We just have to keep an eye on Etna's flank and how it is moving."
Volcano gravitational slides happen worldwide about four times a century, so the possibility of such a catastrophic collapse needs to be taken seriously. In comments to the Times of Malta, senior research fellow John Murray commented that while researchers “argue that because Etna’s slide is caused by gravity it makes a collapse more likely, we still can’t give an indication of when or even if this will actually happen.”
While there's no telling if or when such a deadly catastrophe might take place – the researchers warn that Etna's size, and its picturesque location by the sea, could result in disaster one day.