Mount Etna – Belpasso, Italy - Atlas Obscura
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Mount Etna

Belpasso, Italy

The world's most active stratovolcano is almost always erupting. 

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NASA (Public Domain)
NASA (Public Domain)
Tim Bekaert (Public Domain)
House buried in lava Wikimedia (Creative Commons)
Wikimedia (Creative Commons)
Josep Renalias (Creative Commons)
Chris Hadfield/NASA (Creative Commons)
Hiking on Mt. Etna. chateauesque (Atlas Obscura User)
Hiking on Mt. Etna. chateauesque (Atlas Obscura User)
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Smoke almost constantly rises from this stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily near Messina and Catania.

Volcanic activity has been happening at Mount Etna for 500,000 years, and its area covers about 450 square miles. It’s also the tallest active volcano in Europe, and visitors can see its pocked summit craters, flows of lava that have sometimes consumed houses, and towering cinder cones. However, it’s not all desolation, as there are plants and animals that live beneath the raging volcano.

Mount Etna was designated an UNESCO World Heritage site in 2013.

 

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