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The Italian government is planning the possible evacuation of more than 300,000 people because a nearby dormant volcano is showing signs of eruption – one month after US researchers discovered a roaring volcano in the United States.
The Campo Flegrei area west of Naples has witnessed more than 2,500 earthquakes during the past three months. The largest had a magnitude of 4.0, a similar scenario that led to its eruption in 1583.
Scientists have predicted that if this sleeping giant explodes, it could create a plume large enough to plunge Earth into a global winter for years.
This warning comes months after researchers in California discovered more than 2,000 earthquakes hitting the state’s Long Valley Caldera region, which they said were “precursors of a volcanic eruption.”
Thousands of earthquakes have been detected that have rocked the Campi Flegrei volcano in Italy and the Long Valley caldera in California — both of which once erupted with more than 240 cubic miles of material.
The term “supervolcano” refers to a volcanic center with an eruption intensity of 8 on the VEI, meaning that at least 240 cubic miles of material erupted at one point.
Explosive events of this magnitude erupt so much magma that a circular collapse feature called a caldera forms above the evacuated magma storage area.
If Campi Flegrei explodes, experts believe it will unleash molten lava and volcanic gases into the stratosphere. Live sciences Reports.
Tsunami waves more than 100 feet high would create and spread plumes of toxic ash that could plunge the Earth into a global winter for years.
A giant volcano in Italy has made headlines, with officials considering evacuating those living there due to earthquakes measuring 4.2 and seeing sulfur fumes seeping from the surface.
Not only are the more than 360,000 people living at the mouth of the volcano at risk, but there are about 2.3 million living on or around it.
Scientists claimed that the Campi Flegrei crater was formed 39,000 years ago in an explosion, the largest in Europe in the past 200,000 years.
Campi Flegrei last erupted in 1538, albeit on a much smaller scale.
The devastating Mount Vesuvius in 79 shot a cloud of superheated material and gases 21 miles into the sky, spewing molten rock, crushed pumice and hot ash at a rate of 1.5 million tons per second.
But Campi Flegrei is much larger than Mount Vesuvius.
A giant volcano in Italy has made headlines, with officials considering evacuating those living there due to earthquakes measuring 4.2 and seeing sulfur fumes seeping from the surface.
About 360,000 people live on Campi Flegrei (pictured), but there are at least 1.5 million in the area surrounding the volcano.
Nearly 10 earthquakes were detected around Campi Flegrei on Tuesday, but the quakes that struck on October 23 (pictured) caused roads in Pozzuoli to crack
About 10 earthquakes were detected around Campi Flegrei on Wednesday, but none exceeded a magnitude of 1.1.
The last major earthquake occurred on October 2 – a magnitude of 4.0.
According to the USGS: “A few large regional earthquakes (larger than magnitude 6) are associated with a subsequent eruption or some type of disturbance at a nearby volcano.”
“However, volcanoes can only be triggered to erupt by nearby tectonic earthquakes if they are already ready to erupt.”
The large quake, which did not cause any serious structural damage, plus about 500 smaller quakes so far in October, have made residents like Annamaria Scardi, a mother of two teenage children, nervous.
“Even these small (earthquakes) make us afraid,” she told Reuters.
“We are worried because we are (supposed) to escape.” But where do we go? where? This is the situation. We are on the edge of the abyss.
The government discussed the situation last month and would order an evacuation if civil protection officials warned that the buildings were at risk of collapsing.
“Given that seismic activity has only increased in recent months, at the moment we do not see an end,” Carlo Doglioni, head of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), told TGCom24.
The best case scenario is for activity to stop, as happened after the long unrest in the early 1980s, and the worst is for an eruption like the one that occurred in 1538.
On September 29, 1538, Campi Flegrei awoke in anger, producing a 328-foot cone of cinder for a week.
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have identified more than 2,000 earthquakes that have rocked throughout the Long Valley Caldera in the past 1.5 years.
Another explosion occurred on October 6, killing 24 people.
Traveling across the Atlantic Ocean is another giant volcano that has drawn attention in recent months.
Long Valley Caldera was the site of a massive eruption 767,000 years ago, spewing 140 miles of volcanic material into the atmosphere and destroying the Earth.
Over the course of a year and a half, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) used the cable to measure more than 2,000 seismic events beneath the canyon, most of them too small for people to feel.
However, a 2018 study found that beneath the 20-mile-long, 11-mile-wide crater, there are 240 cubic miles of semi-molten magma.
This amazing discovery of magma, made by a team from the University of California and the University of Rhode Island, means that if another eruption occurs – which experts say is unlikely any time soon – it will lead to a massive natural disaster.
Researchers at Caltech believe the earthquakes are caused by the release of fluids and gases as the area cools and stabilizes.
Ettore Biondi, who participated in the study, said: NBC News An eruption cannot be ruled out.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t have smaller eruptions, but from a supervolcanic eruption perspective, I think so far we’re on the safe side,” Biondi said.
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