As a volcanologist working for the British Geological Survey (BGS) there isn’t much opportunity to visit and study volcanoes since, you may have noticed, we don’t have any in Britain anymore! So when it was suggested by a friend that we go on holiday this year to the Aeolian Islands, naturally I jumped at the chance.
The Aeolian Islands are a group of volcanic islands off the north coast of Sicily in southern Italy, each accommodating their own volcano, some of which are still active today. Not only are they a beautiful group of islands to visit as a tourist, they are also a fascinating place to study volcanoes due to the huge variety in the styles of eruption exhibited by the various volcanoes. Although the BGS isn’t currently working in Italy, it is still important for us to understand as much as possible about how volcanoes work and the types of hazard that they pose and southern Italy is a perfect location to do this. And although my trip to the Aeolian Islands was a holiday that had been planned before I took part in ‘I’m a Scientist’, what better opportunity than to use the prize money towards creating a video and photo diary of our trip to the volcanoes for the BGS website.
Our trip involved a week’s stay on the island of Lipari, from where we made ferry journeys to the nearby islands of Vulcano, Salina, Panarea and Stromboli, with the intention of exploring the islands and conquering the volcanoes! Stromboli is one of the most active volcanoes in Europe and continues to erupt today. It houses a permanent observatory where scientists monitor the volcano’s every move. Our visit to Stromboli involved an overnight stay to see the lava glowing through the darkness and a visit to the observatory to see what the scientists monitor on a daily basis.
And after our week in the Aeolians, we finished off our volcano voyage back on the Sicilian mainland with a trek up Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe.
Smoking craters on Stromboli
Have a look on the BGS’ volcano pages for more information about our work.