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#MudVolcanoOfTheDay (#156) is Paternò mud volcano in Sicily, Italy.

No, not that huge mountain – that’s the volcano Etna.

Paternò is the grey area marked by a red pin, which sits right at the base of Etna. However, there are suggestions of a possible link between the two….
The Paternò mud volcano is located right on the NW edge of the large town of Paternò in eastern Sicily, and ~21km south of the summit of Etna.
goo.gl/maps/gF3qJsw2d…

The MV is on a small hill, right next to a velodrome named for this ‘Salinelle’
The Paternò mud volcano sits on a small hilltop and covers and area ~350m wide. It has a central main vent area, with lots of large visible vents, and two smaller vent areas, one to the west and one coming out of a small slope to the south.
The main vent area is spectacularly clear on some of the Google earth images! You can clearly see the line of active vents, which look mostly like large salses.
Wow, check out the lovely radial mud cracks (visible from space!!) in this image.
The Paternò mud volcano had a big eruption in 2014, caught very clearly in these before and after images. The eruption flooded over the adjacent road.
There are quite a few nice ground photos of the Paternò mud volcano, and it is reported that the main vent area is always quite active and bubbling away – though not easily accessible due to the soft mud.

Photo by Guido Ella Latina from Google Earth.
Recent reports are that the MV is closed off, and people have dumped a lot of litter around – so it is sadly neglected.

I believe all the Sicily MVs were closed after the tragic death of two small children at Macalube mud volcano in 2014 (MVOTD #027).

But wait - didn’t I mention a possible link to Etna? Well, locals believe that the Paternò mud volcano shows more activity before big Etna eruptions. Any connection has been dismissed by local geologists. @NatGeo article on this here:

nationalgeographic.com.au/nature/get-suc…
Paternò is a ‘cold’ mud volcano, with an entirely separate plumbing system to Etna. So, direct connection is unlikely. But maybe its possible for seismicity or stress changes from Etna activity to indirectly affect the MV plumbing system?

Photo: Basilio Busa from Google Maps
It remains uncertain, and should be emphasised that any connection with Etna is anecdotal at best.

So, that wraps up today's thread on the big Pattern mud volcano of Eastern Sicily, in the shadow of the mighty Mount Etna!

Photo: Valerio Giangrasso from Google Maps
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Mark Tingay
@CriticalStress_
Fun Geo-Thread: A Lithological Classification Scheme for Cakes and Pastries
Geologists love rocks. Geologists love food. No field trip in Australia is ever really complete without a stop at a country bakery to fuel up on sweet and savoury baked treats.
So, I’ve decided that its time for geology to properly embrace our love of food by treating food as rocks – starting with cakes, pastries and other goods.

So, here is a tasty thread on the first ever lithological classification scheme for cakes and pastries.
Read 47 tweets
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Mark Tingay
@CriticalStress_
Feeling vindicated by a new paper on the Lusi mud volcano disaster in Marine & Petroleum Geology.

This is not your usual geoscience paper! The author is a Professor of English – and you do not often see geoscience papers that are written like this one!

Thread…
First, a bit of history.

Lusi, or Lumpur Sidoarjo, is a unique disaster that I have covered quite a lot, most recently as part of the #MudVolcanoOfTheDay series here:

Debate on how this disaster was triggered is ongoing, & basically falls into two camps. One side argues the disaster resulted from an accident in the adjacent gas exploration well. The other camp argues Lusi was triggered by a big quake that struck 250km away, 2 days earlier.
Read 19 tweets
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Mark Tingay
@CriticalStress_
On this day in 2006, the 'Lusi' Mud Volcano was born. This was the start of the worst mud volcano disaster in history. A truly unique tragedy.

Lusi is today's #MudVolcanoOfTheDay & the third thread in the #MuddyMay 'Mud Volcano Disasters' series.

Video courtesy of @Greenpeace
The Lusi mud volcano was born before dawn on the 29th May 2006. Hot mud started gushing out of a new hole in the ground in a rice paddy in the town of Sidoarjo.

At rates of ~5000 cubic meters per day, the mud quickly started to flood nearby lands.
The Lusi mud volcano is located in Sidoarjo, which is just south of Surabaya, the second largest city on Java.

Location here:
goo.gl/maps/83vZQurU3…

This was the first time that a new major mud volcano had erupted in the middle of an essentially urban area.
Read 32 tweets

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