Sicily’s Mount Etna is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, but scientists say eruptions aren’t the only major threat posed by this smoldering peak. A new study shows that Etna is slowly sliding toward the sea, raising the prospect that it may suddenly collapse and trigger a massive tsunami that could devastate the region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea. “Etna is a big and heavy volcano, so gravity is pulling it down,” Morelia Urlaub, a research scientist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, and the study’s lead author, told NBC News MACH in an email. “It can spread more easily towards the sea as there is nothing to ‘stop’ it.”
Poster Comment:
Worse for the Americas is Canary Island. CHunk of a mountain could fall into the Atlantic and wipe out the US east coast.