Scientists have found the first direct evidence of a so-called "hot zone" feeding a supervolcano in southern Italy, which experts believe is preparing to erupt.
Phlegrean Fields is a volcanic caldera west of Naples that last erupted centuries ago. The area has been relatively calm since the 1980s, when the release of magma or other fluids into the volcano's supervolcano's surface caused a series of small eruptions.
Now, using seismological technology, scientists have pinpointed the location of the "hot zone" where incandescent material rises to feed the caldera.
The study was conducted by Luca De Siena of the University of Aberdeen in collaboration with the Vesuvius Volcanological Observatory, the University of Naples Research Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin. The results of the work will help predict how and where future eruptions might strike.
“The question that puzzled scientists is where exactly the magma is located under the caldera. Our research provides the first evidence of a hot zone under the city of Pozzuoli that extends 4 km into the sea, says De Siena. "While this is the most likely location for a small patch of magma, it could also be the heated top layer of a wider magma chamber that goes even deeper."
The relatively low volume of seismic activity in the area since the 1980s suggests that pressure is increasing in the caldera, making it even more dangerous.
“Over the past 30 years, the behavior of the volcano has changed, the situation has become 'hot' because of the fluid penetrating through the entire caldera,” explains De Siena.
“Whatever was producing activity near Pozzuoli in the 1980s, it has shifted somewhere else, so the danger now may be much closer to Naples, which is densely populated. The Phlegrean fields are now like a boiling pot of soup under the surface of the earth."
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"What this means in terms of the scale of any future eruption, we cannot say, but there is no doubt that the volcano is becoming more dangerous."