Italian supervolcano "Phlegraean Fields" is showing signs of waking up

earth.com

36 points·MPSimmons··9 comments

That belongs to the missing row of my "what can possibly go wrong?" bingo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/world/europe/naples-volca...

Half a million people in Naples and surroundings would be directly affected, in addition to the impact on local and global weather patterns, and on the economy.

As a non geologist, what's the significance of the gases starting to come from near-surface fluids rather than deep magma? Naively, I would be more worried about the magma as that's what comes up in an eruption. But they seem to be worried that the gas source has changed to subsurface fluids?

Also non-geologist, but my understanding is that the gassing is a sign of "frothing", active magma. It's the difference between boiling just water in a saucepan, and boiling water and pasta - the latter will result in the saucepan overflowing.

I believe that the switch in out-gassing behaviour suggests that the magma viscosity and gas levels have hit a critical point that means that the field is more likely to erupt.

Since 2005. These things take thousands of years...

how far in are we in those thousands of years?

Who knows but the anomaly was detected in 2005 first.

This makes me think I'm gonna start increasing non-perishable reserves for my family.

I really don’t think it matters. Once society is derailed in a way that all food supply chains are disrupted, unless you like in a house on a forest mountain, you’re not going to survive. It would be full on carnage.

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