Stromboli's craters, seen from Pizzo sopra la Fossa, 30 September 1996

Stromboli activity, late September 1996

All photos taken by Matthias Hort, Geomar. Click on thumbnails to get large images

Beginning of an explosive bomb and ash emission from Crater 3, seen from Pizzo sopra la Fossa, on 30 September 1996. Large bombs and blocks falling out from the eruption column to the right are visible on the second photo.

Development of the ash plume as it rises to about 100 m above the crater. Note that an ever increasing angle is taken in the successive images.

View of vent 1 in Crater 3 on30 September 1996. Activity during August 1996 has built two small hornitos (visible in the center of the image). A large vent on the N side of the hornito cluster is showing bright incandescence during daylight, indicating active magma at shallow depth at this site. This is noteworthy as the magma column was low in all other vents of Stromboli at that time.

Two photos of Crater 1, the source of the major explosions in March 1995 and February, June and September 1996. Since the intense cone-building activity in the summer of 1994, most activity at this crater has been rather destructive, and after the latest explosion, almost all of the cones that had formed here are completely gone. The left image shows the crater in a moment of strong degassing, preventing the view of the crater's interior, and a rather passive ash emission is visible in the right image.