- Mount Etna is an active Volcano in eastern Sicily, near Messina and Catania.
Description
- Mount Etna is 10,990 ft high (3,350m) and is the highest mountain in Italy, south of the Alps, and the highest active volcano in Europe.
Greek Mythology
- Mount Etna was considered a sacred mountain in Greek Mythology, second to Mount Olympus in Greece.
- Vulcan, the God of Fire, Haephestus to the Greeks, had his workshop under the Volcano.
- Zeus trapped the monster Typhon, by throwing Mount Etna onto him and permanently trapping him underneath it.
Recorded Eruptions
- 425 BCE Diodorus Siculus (60-30 BCE) wrote that this was the first recorded eruption of Mount Etna.
- 396 BCE Another eruption occurred during the Second Sicilian War which prevented the Carthaginians taking Syracuse.
Oldest Chestnut Tree in the World
- The Hundred Horse Chestnut is the oldest chestnut tree in the world estimated between 2-4,000 years old, 5 miles (8km) east of Mt. Etna’s centre.
Active Volcanoes
- Hekla, Iceland.
- Krakatoa, Indonesia.
- Mauna Loa, Hawaii
- Mount Etna, Italy.
- Mount Vesuvius, Italy.
- Mount Teide, Tenerife, Spain.
- Stromboli, Aeolian Islands, Italy.
- Vulcano, Aeolian Islands, Italy.
Mount Etna, Sicily: