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Etna Park

Established in 1987, is the first natural park in Sicily.
After Nebrodi Park is the largest protected area of Sicily (about 59,000 ha).
With approximately 3,300 meters above sea level, Mount Etna is a sort of giant fire place in the heart of the Mediterranean: a consideration necessary to understand what represents today the unique ecosystem which is the highest active volcano in Europe. High temperature range, the continuous succession of eruptions, the variety of landscapes (from the sea to the forests to lava flows) make it a different habitats as it fits an incredible amount of plant and animal species.
But beware: above 2500 meters does not grow anything except the occasional broom. During an excursion that remains etched in memory, sitting on an outcrop of lava cooled prematurely from icy nights, contemplaremo together, aiming from the Aeolian Islands, the extraordinary fusion of water and fire, earth and air. If we consider the Etna as an active volcano that rises majestically in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, we also understand what an extraordinary example of biodiversity, which represents today this was the first park established in Sicily. From the rolling hills of Etna's summit crater, a Mediterranean climate with low temperatures at high altitude, the landscape unfolds in a wide variety of vegetation-fauna that has attracted scientists and researchers from around the world, incurisiositi, here, as the meeting of water and earth, fire and air has given rise to quite extraordinary album of endemism. The Etna park, divided into 4 zones of protection, embraces twenty municipalities in the province of Catania, and represents, as a whole, with a unique environment in the Mediterranean has four Etna summit craters, Bocca Nuova, Voragine, North Crater Crater-east and south-east. On its slopes there are hundreds of adventive cones, formed during the eruptions that continued over the millennia. The Valle del Bove depression that opens to the sea on the eastern flank of the volcano, about 5 km wide and 8 long, the slope in the steepest part is 1200m high. The origin of this depression is due to one or more landslides occurred on the flank of the volcano probably during explosive eruptions. The first phase of the Etna eruption began about 300 thousand years ago, at the submarine. The lava flowing out of fractures of the seabed, being subjected to hydrostatic pressure and low temperatures, around the mouth suddenly cools emission giving rise to the pillow lavas, some of which are still visible in Aci Castello. Among the most powerful eruptions in the history of Etna, we must remember that in 1669, a vent opened in Nicolosi, just 800 meters of altitude, with an activity type that gave rise to Strombolian cones of the Red Mountains and reached and destroyed the city of Catania to drain into the sea. Neglecting the attempt made in 1669 by the inhabitants of Catania, the first real action of deviation of a lava flow from the man was released by the Department of Civil Defense during the eruption of 1983. Later this type of intervention has been repeated, in different ways and with greater success during the eruptions of 1992, 2001 and 2002.