[ExI] Etna, silhouetted by a dawn sky

[Amara Graps]

In the last days I put in a marathon effort to finish the latest and,
hopefully, near-last, revisions of my popsci article 'how did Earth get
its water ?' story. While the answer is complicated, one of the
processes to release the volatiles to the atmosphere has been known for
a long time- volcanoes.

However, we can view the role of volcanoes in a more primordial way.

What we witness in a volcanic eruption is the energy left from the
formation of the Earth and the subsequent meteoritic impacts.


Etna, silhouetted by a dawn sky,  June 28, 2008

The Earth is breathing.

Here we have opposite views on the same flow, silhouetted by a dawn sky.
At times it is difficult to know where the clouds begin and end.


View the images below as a set of pairs, one "a" photo in one window,
and the corresponding "b" photo in an adjacent window.

This is a mini-time series, from the top down, with the dawn breaking
in blues and grays, initially, and then opening up the sky and mixing
with the gas and dust from Etna: yellows  and oranges.

http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_a1_28June08.jpg
http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_b1_28June08.jpg

http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_a2_28June08.jpg
http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_b2_28June08.jpg

http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_a3_28June08.jpg
http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_b3_28June08.jpg

http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_a7_28June08.jpg
http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/etna_sunrise_b7_28June08.jpg


I can't wait until my unborn is born and big enough to
introduce him/her to these volcanoes. :-)

http://www.amara.com/volcanoes/volcanoes.html


Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado