​Mount Etna, the largest and most active volcano of Europe, is located on the NE region of Sicily Island, southern Italy. Its recent volcanic activity is typically effusive with explosive episodes and lava fountaining able to produce high (up to 15 km) eruptive plumes.

 

In the framework of the ARISE2 project, the Universities of the Azores (UAc) and Florence (UniFI), carried out a collaborative research on the IS42 infrasound detections of explosive volcanic activity. A comparison of infrasound detections of the IMS station IS42, located at a distance of 3,700 km from Etna with data recorded near the source (around 5km) by the ETN local UniFI infrasonic array for the Etna volcanic activity in 2011 and 2016 has been performed.

 

In the present study we extend the long-range observations to the IMS infrasound stations at IS48, IS26, IS42, and IS17, at source-to-receiver distances ranging from approximately 550 km to 3,980 km, with a maximum azimuthal gap of approximately 200˚. We compare the detections obtained with the near field detections of the ETN and the long range observations with the events listed in the Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB) of the CTBTO International Data Center (IDC), in order to evaluate the potential of the IMS network in detecting and identifying sources of volcanic activity.