Lipari (Italy)

Status Normal Eruption 1230 590m
Stratovolcano(es) (Subduction zone / Continental crust (> 25 km))

Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands, is located immediately north of Vulcano Island. The irregular-shaped island contains numerous small stratovolcanoes, craters, and lava domes on a basement of submarine volcanic deposits. Lipari was formed in three major eruptive cycles, the first of which took place from about 223 to 188 thousand years ago (ka) from N-S-trending fissures on the western side of the island. The second eruptive period from about 102 to 53 ka included the formation of the Monte San Angelo and Costa d'Agosto stratovolcanoes in the center of the island. The third eruptive cycle (40 ka to the present) included the Monte Guardia sequence, erupted at the southern tip of the island between about 22,600 and 16,800 years ago, and Holocene rhyolitic pyroclastic deposits and obsidian lava flows at the NE end of the island. The latest eruption, at Monte Pilato on the NE tip of the island, formed the Rocche Rosse and Forgia Vecchia obsidian lava flows, which have been dated variously from about 500 to 1230 CE. Objects made of obsidian from Lipari have been found throughout southern Italy.

Lipari, the largest of Italy's Aeolian Islands, was constructed during four eruptive cycles beginning about 100,000 years ago. Monte Giardina lava dome on the south side of the island, seen here from the NE with Lipari city in the foreground, formed as part of an eruptive cycle from about 23,000 to 17,000 years ago. Holocene eruptions formed the Pomiciazzo lava dome and the Rocche Rosse and Forgia Vecchia obsidian flows.

Photo by Richard Waitt, 1985 (U.S. Geological Survey).

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