Mount Etna blows smoke rings

Mount Etna, located on the east coast of Italy’s island Sicily, is the highest active volcano in Europe at 3,357 metres high. In the first week of April, Etna has been in the news because of a curious and fascinating phenomenon that has attracted the attention of visitors and photographers.

The Italian volcano has expelled thousands of near-perfect smoke rings into the atmosphere due to Etna’s peculiar conditions. This is not the first time that the volcano has given onlookers this show as a similar phenomenon occurred in 2000.

“The smoke rings are formed when the volcano shoots gas at high speed through a narrow and very cylindrical duct, like a smoker”, said Boris Behncke, a scientist at the Etna Observatory of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology of Catania.

Late in the afternoon of April 2, a small chimney opened at the summit, producing bursts of incandescent gas. “The next morning it was evident that these gusts produced an impressive amount of steam rings”, the scientist explained.

This phenomenon, called ‘volcanic vortex rings’, can be observed in different volcanoes around the world. However, Etna is the one that generates the most rings. In 2000, Behncke recalls, it triggered some 5,000 rings in a few months.

Etna is one of the most active volcanoes on the planet and some locals in the Italian region have started to call it the ‘Lady of the Rings’.