Roots of Etna volcano in faults of great earthquakes

Results from several seismic methods allow us to sketch the deep structure of Etna and its Ionian margin. Under Etna a volume of high velocity material is found in a structurally high position; the emplacement of this suggests spreading of the surrounding medium. Just offshore, down-to-the-east normal faults penetrate through the upper crust. The deeper crustal structure beneath appears upwarped from the basin towards Etna. Juxtaposed with the crust of Sicily, a thinner crust reaches from the Ionian Basin under Etna, and the mantle is upwarped. In such a structure, magma can then be viewed as a melted lens capping a mantle upwarp at shallow depth, rather than in an intracrustal chamber. This reduces the conflict between estimates of its volume from excess output of volatiles and short residence times. A link in time is indicated between volcanic and seismic activity at a large scale: over the millennium the reported ends of episodes of high output rates of magma are followed by the reported occurrences of magnitude 7 + earthquakes which caused destruction in southeastern Sicily. Several steep active normal fault have been imaged to a depth of 10 km the crust up to 30 km offshore of the cities of Catania and Augusta, which may be fault planes for such large earthquakes. They expand and prolongate the system of the Timpe faults on the eastern flank of Etna, thus linking large-scale tectonics offshore with the volcano. Etna developed together with normal faulting, upwarp, and spreading during the recent evolution of the former Ionian subduction. Activation of the material at depth at the lateral edge of the slab, by vertical motion with extension above, could produce the peculiar type of Etna magmatism.