For a Volcanologist Living on Mount Etna, the Latest Eruption Is a Delight - Boris Behncke is enjoying one of nature’s greatest displays from the comfort of home.8DCA9E4F-AB92-4F84-B397-655019FCD73B.jpegBoris Behncke was growing impatient. The sun was setting, twilight was soaking the soil, and the sky was not yet on fire. For the past few days, Mount Etna’s almost preternatural displays of liquid hot rage had come along like clockwork, spaced roughly 30 hours apart on the 16th, 18th, and 19th of February 2021. It was unusual for one of the world’s most active volcanoes to be so punctual. But suddenly, on the 20th, it seemed to have broken its cycle. Behncke, a volcanologist at the Etna Observatory of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), kept his vigil.Then, as darkness arrived, tiny jets of incandescent material flung themselves out of the summit, high above eastern Sicily. A thin tongue of lava emerged a little later, and a jet of molten rock shot up few hundred feet. The real fun began at 1:30 a.m. Violent explosions threw volcanic bombs the size of fridges from the peak. Lava spouted up more than 3,300 feet, illuminating the volcano like a flare. A red-and-black shower of fresh volcanic matter rained down, partially obscured by the six-mile-high tower of ash piercing the inky blue sky. The volcano’s roars echoed among the houses of about a million people living on its slopes—Behncke included.At press time, Etna was in the middle of its sixth paroxysm, and Behncke can’t get enough. “This is the most beautiful volcano on Earth,” he tweeted a few days earlier. He could be a little biased—he’s lived on or around it for a quarter of a century, after all—but with a show so spectacular, who could question him?7E763FCC-F29A-49C7-8BA8-5DBC1C4B8CD2.jpegEC980314-2FF3-4FB5-99E3-BCC146E88E12.jpeg65A3441B-EA98-4244-85CE-8D29B8C01C01.jpegD40988DB-8D18-48D3-8B8B-5A9D2A81075A.jpeghttps://www.atlasobscura.com/article...-etna-eruption