Volcanism of Italy

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Active and quiescent volcanoes present in Italy

The volcanism of Italy is due chiefly to the presence, a short distance to the south, of the boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate. Italy is a volcanically active country, containing the only active volcanoes in mainland Europe (while volcanic islands are also present in Greece, in the volcanic arc of the southern Aegean). The lava erupted by Italy's volcanoes is thought to result from the subduction and melting of one plate below another.

Active and quiescent eruptive centres in Italy grouped into the main magmatic provinces. This map considers the magmatic provinces present from the Middle Miocene to the Quaternary, from active to quiescent centres to late hydrothermal manifestations. Ancient volcanic manifestations (Paleozoic to Lower Tertiary), which are now completely inactive, are not considered here.

Three main clusters of volcanism exist: a line of volcanic centres running northwest along the central part of the Italian mainland (see: Campanian volcanic arc); a cluster northeast of Sicily in the Aeolian Islands; and a cluster southwest of Sicily around the island of Pantelleria, in the Mediterranean's Strait of Sicily. Sardinia has had a totally separate geological history from that of the rest of Italy, where several cycles of volcanic activity occurred, the last of which ended at the beginning of the Pleistocene, but currently hosts only permanently extinct volcanoes.[1]

Due to their position within densely populated areas, Etna and Vesuvius have been included in the list of "Volcanoes of the Decade", a global list of volcanoes to be kept under closer surveillance.[2] In particular, the "Volcanoes of the Decade" is a list drawn up by International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior, as part of a United Nations project, which includes, overall, 16 volcanoes distributed all over the world.[2]

Italy was the first country to exploit geothermal energy to produce electricity.[3] The high geothermal gradient that forms part of the peninsula makes it potentially exploitable also in other regions; research carried out in the 1960s and 1970s identified potential geothermal fields in Lazio and Tuscany, as well as in most volcanic islands.[3]

  1. ^ Filippo Mundula, Raffaello Cioni, Francesco Dessì, Antonio Funedda, Maria Teresa Melis, Danila Elisabetta Patta (2015). Gli edifici vulcanici cenozoici della Sardegna (PDF) (in Italian). Rubbettino Editore.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ a b "Dove sono situati i vulcani?" (in Italian). 14 May 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Inventario delle risorse geotermiche nazionali". UNMIG. 2011. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 14 September 2011.