The Supervolcanoes that could kill us all

The Supervolcanoes that could kill us all

VESUVIUS is a volcano steeped in history.

The ash-covered towns of Pompei and Herculaneum have taught us a considerable amount about Europe’s past.

But now, the volcanic network of which Mount Vesuvius is just a part may be threatening Europe’s future.

The Camp Flegrei - “Burning Fields” - caldera is a vast 100sq/km magma chamber under the Italian city of Naples.

And it’s been discovered this has been quietly gathering more magma since the 1980s.

A new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports reveals a “hot zone” has been discovered to the west of Naples, under the city of Pozzuoli.

Unlike the conical mountain Vesuvius, Camp Flegrei is a vast depression in the Earth’s crust.

The “hot zone” has been steadily feeding fresh magma into this caldera, prompting fears it could soon burst.

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“By studying how the ground is cracking and moving at Campi Flegrei, we think it may be approaching a critical stage where further unrest will increase the possibility of an eruption, and it’s imperative that the authorities are prepared for this,” study co-author Dr Christopher Kilburn from the University College London Hazard Center writes.

A MONSTER STIRS

Apart from a deadly earthquake which hit the Italian Island of Ischia last month — which is just south of the “hot zone” — the Naples region has been relatively quiet for the past four decades.

Suspiciously so.

While the processes influencing supervolcanos is not clearly understood, a lack of seismic activity since a series of small earthquakes in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s could indicate a steady build-up of pressure. This spate of quakes appears to have opened a flow of fresh magma out of a “hot zone” which has since been slowly spreading through the caldera.

“Our study provides the first evidence of a hot zone under the city of Pozzuoli that extends into the sea at a depth of 4km,” says Dr Luca De Siena of the University of Aberdeen.

“While this is the most probable location of a small batch of magma, it could also be the heated fluid-filled top of a wider magma chamber, located even deeper.”

An eruption will occur once the pressure of molten rock causes the ground to stretch to breaking point. He says any eruption could seriously affect the Naples region, which contains almost 1.5 million people.

“Whatever produced the activity under Pozzuoli in the 1980s has migrated somewhere else, so the danger doesn’t just lie in the same spot, it could now be much nearer to Naples which is more densely populated.”

EXPLOSIVE POTENTIAL

“During the last 30 years the behaviour of the volcano has changed, with everything becoming hotter due to fluids permeating the entire caldera,” Dr De Siena says.

“This means that the risk from the caldera is no longer just in the centre, but has migrated. Indeed, you can now characterise Campi Flegrei as being like a boiling pot of soup beneath the surface.

“What this means in terms of the scale of any future eruption we cannot say, but there is no doubt that the volcano is becoming more dangerous.

“The big question we have to answer now is if it is a big layer of magma that is rising to the surface, or something less worrying which could find its way to the surface out at sea.”

And as the magma chamber extends out to sea, there exists the potential for an eruption to trigger an enormous water-magma detonation.

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Such a reaction wiped out the Mediterranean island of Thera, sending enormous tsunamis into Crete, devastating the ancient Minoan civilisation, and sending plumes of gas and ash around the planet.

Campi Flegrei has only had two major eruptions — 35,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago — and a smaller eruption in 1538.