
© KONTROLAB via Getty ImagesA view of Solfatara crater, part of the Campi Flegrei Volcano in Pozzuoli, Italy.
Campi Flegrei, a volcanic caldera west of Naples, is speeding toward a transition within the next decade, a new study suggests, but researchers can't yet say whether that transition will be an eruption or some other change in the volcano's internal plumbing.
The caldera, also known as the Phlegraean Fields, is home to about 500,000 people who would be at risk in the event of an eruption. The caldera stretches about 9 miles (15 kilometers) in diameter and formed in a massive eruption
40,000 years ago. Other, smaller eruptions have happened since, including an explosive one in 1528 that built Monte Nuovo, a 433-foot (132 meters) cinder cone.
"Our paper identifies when the system is likely to reach a breaking point, but it cannot determine what will happen at that breaking point with the current data," said study first author
Davide Zaccagnino, a postdoctoral researcher who studies geological hazards at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Guangdong, China.
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