DCO Samples Mt. Etna's Gases

A sampling campaign at Sicily’s Mt. Etna—the Earth’s largest emitter of CO₂—is underway in June 2012 with support from the Deep Carbon Observatory's Reservoirs and Fluxes Directorate. Etna erupts frequently and its last eruption took place April 22, 2012. Plume gases are emitted from the magma body below the craters, which is currently at less than 1 km depth from the summit, which has an altitude of 3300 m.

The fine isotope variations of helium in the air over volcanic areas are being studied as part of DCO’s goal of better quantifying emissions of CO₂ from volcanoes. Bernard Marty, Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (CRPG), is working with Sandro Aiuppa and his team from Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) Palermo, and with Salvo Gianmanco, from INGV Catania to lead the campaign.  Both Aiuppa and Gianmanco will be further involved in the DCO through the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) project.

The photos here show the working conditions at the summit craters. Tefang Lan, a post-doctoral fellow supported by DCO, is seen sampling gases with others, including Bernard Marty, Co-chair of the Reservoirs and Fluxes Directorate, and Marteen de Moor.