Publications by authors named "Marco Viccaro"

The compositional heterogeneity of clinopyroxene in products of the 1888-90 eruption at La Fossa of Vulcano has been used to constrain times of the plumbing system reactivation before the eruption. We have also investigated the temporal trend of the SO flux at La Fossa crater since 1978 to gather information about the origin, depths and quantity of magma involved in the recent degassing crises. Petrological data emphasizes migration of deep-seated magmas and their emplacement in the shallow system, clearly supporting the involvement of three distinct phases of mafic replenishments occurred respectively 85-140, 16-35 and 2-7 years before the 1888-90 eruption.

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Magmatism accompanies rifting along divergent plate boundaries, although its role before continental breakup remains poorly understood. For example, the magma-assisted Northern Main Ethiopian Rift (NMER) lacks current volcanism and clear tectono-magmatic relationships with its contiguous rift portions. Here we define its magmatic behaviour, identifying the most recent eruptive fissures (EF) whose aphyric basalts have a higher Ti content than those of older monogenetic scoria cones (MSC), which are porphyritic and plagioclase-dominated.

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Open conduit basaltic volcanoes can be potentially hazardous as the eruptive activity may turn suddenly from a steady state to highly explosive. Unexpected changes in explosion intensity are recurrent at Stromboli volcano, where major explosions and large-scale paroxysms sometimes break off the ordinary, Strombolian activity with little or no warning. Two powerful paroxysmal eruptions took place at Stromboli volcano during the summer 2019, causing widespread fires, consistent damages across the island, injuries and one fatality.

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A new sequence of eruptions occurred at Mt. Etna volcano during the first half of 2017, after almost 8 months of quiescence. These episodes had low-to-mild intensity and markedly differ from the violent paroxysms occurred at the Voragine Crater (VOR) during December 2015 and May 2016.

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Lithium gradients in plagioclase are capable of recording extremely short-lived processes associated with gas loss from magmas prior to extrusion at the surface. We present SIMS profiles of the Li/Si ion ratio in plagioclase crystals from products of the paroxysmal sequence that occurred in the period 2011-2013 at Mt. Etna (Italy) in an attempt to constrain the final ascent and degassing processes leading to these powerful eruptions involving basic magma.

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