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keep away from the summit region and do not try to climb the rims of the Bocca Nuova. The strong explosive activity of the crater is extremely dangerous and the lava bombs which can reach half a meter are flying far over the crater rim. Thrown out lava rocks can injure you seriously, or may kill you! I made this terrible experience by myself, while descending the crater after the observation. 70m under the rim when I thought I am safe now I turned back to be sure what is happening. Then I saw a very big bomb (half meter) rising high over the black crater horizon. At first I thought it will fall back in the Bocca Nuova, but then I realized that the thing has a flight trajectory coming straight toward to my standing position. The most difficulty was, that I even couldn't made out up to the last second, if this glowing rock will strike me or not. I was lucky because this bullet passed me in a distance of five meter. Meanwhile a second bomb beated the rim and was rolling also in my direction. So I had to jump away. Now you see it is very hazardous near the active craters. Please do not ascend the summit !!
This photo above is showing the left vent which is laying in the northern part of the Bocca Nuova. The most significant sign on this 'one second' exposed Image is, that the out thrown lava left straight radial lines on the Celluloid. This means that this explosion had been so strong that the material of liquid / plastic consistence was shoot very fast and high (200m- 300m) in the atmosphere. Boris Behncke who observed the Bocca Nuova together with two students did guess that on the flat bottom of the crater one tube is centred nearly in the middle. In the late afternoon Wolfgang Müller (down left) tried to get nearer to the crater, but he had no chance to get a view inside, because of the dangerous explosions. B.Behncke (on the right) also mentioned that is very dangerous to stay in the total darkness on the rim, because if any lava plug is exploding you won't see the sometimes not lightning material coming through the night. He had this unpleasant happening three days before. Observing the up to one meter big magma shreds flying in a low altitude over the edge of the crater let us conclude that the pipe on the bottom must be filled plenty with magma.
The next four Images are longer exposed (2sec) are showing the flight trajectory of the lava which was lifted far over the south rim of the Bocca Nuova. The ejected material was forced up to 100m. Together with this pictures you must imagine yourself a sound scenery which changed every five seconds between loud bass explosions 'which are going through the stomach', sharp whistling and noisy roarings
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This Image in southern direction was taken by Ingo von Kaenel on the slopes of the Bocca Nuova during our ascend to the top. This photo shows the 'fresh' lavaflow which came down at march/april 2000 from the SE-crater. This flow has the length of apprx.1.5 km and the breadth at the devided end of nearly one km .On the bigger version (click), you can discover amass of craters in front of the flow. This is the result of the 66 paroxysm of the SE who provided the whole summit area with plenty of lava bombs during the time from 1/2000 - 8/2000. Key heroes
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