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Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 4
Lesson 2: Volcanoes- Volcanoes 101
- Volcanoes: Magma Rising
- Monitoring Mount Etna: Magma on the Move
- Follow the Magma
- Yellowstone—Monitoring the Fire Below
- Yellowstone National Park is a Volcano
- Scientists at Work: Hawaii
- Quiz: Volcanoes
- Exploration Questions: Volcanoes
- Answers to Exploration Questions: Volcanoes
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Monitoring Mount Etna: Magma on the Move
Scientists in Sicily are collecting an enormous amount of data to monitor moving magma inside Mount Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Nearly a million people live on the volcano's flanks, so being able to predict an eruption could be a matter of life and death. In this Earth Bulletin, visit the volcano's snowy slopes and learn how scientists from the Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology record seismic activity, measure gases seeping up through the ground, sense the volcano's temperature changes, and assess disturbances in gravitational and magnetic fields to predict eruptions weeks ahead of time. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
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How does the thermal imaging help them?(1 vote)
Thermal imaging helps because scientists can tell from GPS surveys and laser imaging how much a volcano's crater has risen in the past, compared to its current state. Surprisingly, a crater can show a lot about a volcano's eruption time. In the past, they have been observed to rise from 1.5m-80m before eruption. So in this way, they can predict volcano eruptions.(2 votes)
What is the difference between a volcano and a hot mountain? As far as I know, they both have magma.(0 votes)- What is a hot mountain? I've never heard of such a thing.(2 votes)