Campi Flegrei in Italy is showing alarming early signs, but scientists warn the eruption is far from certain. A long-dormant “supervolcano” in Italy is approaching a potential eruption for the first time since 1538, and the consequences could be disastrous, a new study warns.

The crust of Campi Flegrei volcano, near Naples in southern Italy, is weakening and making it more prone to rupture, “raising the likelihood of an eruption,” scientists said in a new study. More than 1.5 million people live above the vast underground volcanic complex, and half a million people live within the 7-mile (11-kilometer) caldera that was formed after a massive eruption 39,000 years ago.

If Campi Flegrei were to repeat its previous largest eruption, it would have sent molten rock and volcanic gases high into the stratosphere, triggering a 33.5-metre tsunami and sending a cloud of sulfur and toxic ash that could engulf the Earth. years of global winter – killing crops and causing mass extinctions. The researchers published their findings June 9 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

“Our new study confirms that Campi Flegrei is approaching a breakout,” lead study author Christopher Kilburn, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London, said in a statement. However, “this does not mean that an explosion is guaranteed. A rupture can open a crack in the crust, but for an eruption to occur, the magma must still push in the right place.”

Campi Flegrei, meaning “burning fields” or “fields of fire,” is a vast, often hidden network of 24 craters and buildings that stretches from the vast caldera opposite Mount Vesuvius at the western tip of Naples to nearby Puzzoli Bay.

A 2016 satellite image showing the “breathing” cratered landscape of Campi Flegrei.

Although Campi Flegrei is often referred to as a supervolcano, this has not been definitively established. Supervolcanoes are volcanoes that can produce eruptions of the highest magnitude (8 on the Volcanic Eruption Index) that ejected more than 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers) of material in the process.

However, Campi Flegrei’s largest ever eruption ejected 70 cubic miles (285 cubic kilometers) of material, which is still a Category 7 hazard. One of the dangerous chemical elements to be released in the plume is fluoride, which in sufficient quantities can kill plants and cause a disease in animals called fluorosis.

The volcano has been active since the mid-20th century, with bursts of increased activity in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s. Another period of turmoil has begun in the last decade and is still going on; During this period, the ground beneath Pozzuoli, a city on the roof of the volcano, rose by 4 inches (10 centimeters) each year, contributing to the total change in elevation above the sea. level. 13 ft (4 m) from the 1950s. Campi Flegrei also experiences constant minor earthquakes in the region with more than 600 earthquakes recorded in April, the highest monthly number ever recorded.

The underground fermentation was likely fueled by volcanic gas that seeped into the crust 2 miles (3 km) below the surface of Campi Flegri and sucked it up like a sponge, the researchers said. This causes the crust to stretch, bend, and slide, sending earthquakes to the surface. If enough volcanic gas enters the crust, the heat and pressure it creates can push rocks to “critical degassing pressure,” breaking them apart and opening a crack for the magma beneath to escape in an eruption.

To see how likely an explosion might be, the researchers combined seismic readings with ground elevation measurements to map estimates of the region’s changes in crustal tensile strength (the maximum stress a material can withstand before breaking) and its proximity to fracture.

The researchers’ model suggests that the crust beneath the Campi Flegrei fractured rather than bent under pressure. Deep underground, failure of subsurface gas and magma has been slowly bending and weakening Campi Flegri’s crust since the 1950s, reducing its tensile strength to just one-third of its 1984 level, according to research.

This means that while earthquakes in the area aren’t as strong as in the 1980s, the weaker rock can break under smaller stresses, giving seismologists less detectable earthquakes and less warning to evacuate people.

Despite this, scientists say this does not mean that a giant eruption is imminent. For volcanoes to erupt, gases must accumulate faster than they can escape, and magma must also be able to move rapidly through the earth’s crust where the rift is forming—two conditions that scientists won’t know for sure until an eruption occurs.

The same can be said for the size of a potential Campi Flegrei eruption, which is hard to predict, but the scientists say it’s most likely small.

“This is the same for all volcanoes that have been quiet for generations. Campi Flegrei may enter a new routine of gentle rise and fall, or simply return to recession, as seen with similar volcanoes around the world,” Stefano Carlino, a researcher at the Vesuvius Observatory, said in a statement. We cannot say what will happen. It’s important to be prepared for all consequences.” Source