Mt. Etna

This famous volcano on Sicily exploded on Christmas & set off several earthquakes.  What is Mt. Etna?  This would not be the first time that Mt. Etna appeared as the answer to a Jeopardy question.

                Not only is Mt. Etna an active volcano, but it is also Europe’s largest active volcano.  The volcano is often referred to as mungibeddu/mongibello.  Although in Italian this translates roughly to beautiful mountain, the word is actually derived from the Latin word mons (mountain) and the Arabic word gebel (mountain).  A local once explained to me that they don’t call it a volcano because the word volcano has the connotation of evil and destruction.  In fact, the volcano has made the land extremely fertile while the mountain itself is beautiful.  It is one of the few places in the world where someone can go skiing in spring and on the same day go down to the beach to go tanning.

Mongibello - A View of the Crater

       On June 14^th, 2014 I hiked up Mt. Etna with one of my professors (Pepe) as well as with a number of students.  We began the hike at about two thousand meters elevation.  Pepe decided that we would take the road less traveled (Frost reference intended).  As a direct result, only five of us made it to the crater/summit.  The flora and fauna of the volcano were extremely varied and they changed relative to the elevation of the volcano.  At the lowest elevations the volcano appeared to be a forest of pine, beech, and birch.  Slightly higher up, the trees began to disappear and plants began to appear in colors that were both vivid and diverse.  As we climbed the rocky side of the volcano, we passed roughly-constructed grave markers for both a skier and pilot who had met their demise on the sometimes treacherous mountainside.  At a certain point in elevation, all of the wildlife ceased to exist and was replaced by rolling hills of black, volcanic ash.  Underfoot, the ash felt like regular sand.  It was a truly eerie experience; the only sounds were that of our feet sinking into the soft ground.  We reached one of the craters approximately six hours after we had started hiking.  While we were admiring the serenity of the crater, an ominous cloud rolled through which obscured our views and brought with it a cold air.  Shortly thereafter a wintry hail precipitated an emergency evacuation of the upper echelon of the volcano.  We were put into a large truck which careened its way down the winter ski slopes to a safe location.  The video below was taken right before the truck came to get us.  Before heading home, we relaxed and shared drinks at the ski lodge, as we regaled those who had turned back about our adventure. 

That same night, I watched from a safe location as florescent, orange lava flowed out of Mt. Etna in the distance.  What an experience!

The view of Etna from Taormina

Adjectives – Descriptive Adjectives

Adjectives are words that are used to describe people or things in a sentence.  Most of the time, adjectives will appear before the noun that the adjective is going to modify, but they are able to go nearly anywhere in a sentence.  Adjectives are able to describe a number of characteristics, such as appearance, color, sound, size, shape, and more.  The second paragraph is packed with adjectives, these adjectives appear in blue.  Notice that if the paragraph was read without any of these purple words, it would be a lot less descriptive and it would not paint as much of a mental image.

Check out this website that has lists of adjectives broken up by the characteristics that they are able to describe. List of Adjectives - Moms Who Think

Vocabulary

Connotation – Idea or feeling attached to a word, not a literal meaning

Fertile – Able to produce fruits and vegetables

Elevation - Height

Demise – A person’s death

Eerie – Strange and frightening

Serenity – Sense of peacefulness and calmness

Ominous – Giving the feeling that something bad is going to happen

Vocabulary Exercises – Use the vocabulary above to fill in the blanks.

1. Peter met his ultimate _________ as a result of his poor health decisions.

2. The haunted house that we visited last week was _________.

3. At a certain __________, it becomes difficult to breath.

4. The silt from the Nile River caused the surrounding land to be extremely _______.

5. The monk found a certain sense of __________ at the temple.

6. I don’t like the look of those two guys outside, they look __________.

7. The word has a different __________ in other contexts.