Pantelleria (Italy)

Status Normal Eruption 1891 836m
Shield (Rift zone / Continental crust (> 25 km))

The island of Pantelleria is constructed above a drowned continental rift in the Strait of Sicily and has been the locus of intensive volcano-tectonic activity. Two large Pleistocene calderas dominate the island, which contains numerous post-caldera lava domes and cinder cones and is the type locality for peralkaline rhyolitic rocks, pantellerites. The 15-km-long island is the emergent summit of a largely submarine edifice. The 6-km-wide Cinque Denti caldera, the youngest of the two calderas, formed about 45,000 years ago and contains the two post-caldera shield volcanoes of Monte Grande and Monte Gibele. Holocene eruptions have constructed pumice cones, lava domes, and short, blocky lava flows. Many Holocene vents are located on three sides of the uplifted Montagna Grande block on the SE side of the island. A submarine eruption in 1891 from a vent ~4 km off the NW coast is the only confirmed historical activity.

The 15-km-long island of Pantelleria is constructed above a drowned continental rift in the Strait of Sicily. Part of the mostly buried arcuate rims of two large Pleistocene calderas are seen in this NASA Landsat image (with north to the top). The SE rims of the calderas form the two dark-colored lines at the lower right part of the island, below and to the right of the forested Monte Grande and Monte Gibele shield volcanoes. Monte Gibele, with its circular summit crater, was constructed in the southern part of the younger Cinque Denti caldera.

NASA Landsat7 image (worldwind.arc.nasa.gov)

Last updated 2019-08-04 00:28:02