“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
3 de diciembre de 2015
Italy’s Etna Unleashes a Short but Spectacular Eruption
Mount Etna erupts on December 3, 2015. Marco Restivo/Demotix/CorbisAfter what has been a quiet 2015, Etna
saw one of its first paroxysms of the year. Over the last few weeks,
the Voragina crater on Etna has been restless, with low level
Strombolian activity that was mainly confined to the crater. However,
last night, the Voragine crater unleashed a lava fountain
that reached 1 kilometer (~3,200 feet) over the volcano with an
accompanying ash plume that topped 3 kilometers (~9,800 feet). Even with
all that intensity of eruption, the paroxysm was over in only 50
minutes. By this morning, only a thin, white plume was coming from Etna,
although some of the ash plume was still visible to the east over the
sea (see above). A
thin, wispy plume is all that is left of last night’s paroxysm at
Italy’s Etna. Some of the plume from the eruption is seen to the east
(right) over the ocean. Acquired December 3, 2015 via Aqua/MODIS. NASASome stunning pictures were
captured of this brief eruption (admittedly helped by some clever time
lapse), but they show the lava fountain and the spreading ash plume as
well. The plume was also spotted by weather satellites as well (see
below), puffing upwards and then drifting to the northeast.
This was Etna’s first significant eruption since May 2015,
when the activity was centered at the New Southeast Crater, but the
Voragine Crater had been sputtering lava occasionally since the start of
the year. If Etna rumbles back to life again, you might be able to
catch it on one of INGV’s many webcams.
