In the autumn of 1954 the last submarine earthquake and tidal wave to hit Italy took place in the proximity of Stromboli, the island in the central Tyrrhenian, creating waves in excess of 10 metres. Approximately 90 minutes later crests were less than two metres high, breaking on the Sicilian coast at less than 50 kilometres per hour. The waters surrounding Sicily are plagued by volcanoes famous since antiquity. On July 13, 1831 amid huge clouds of smoke and lava flows issuing from a crack in the sea bottom, a new island was born in the Sicilian Channel. The Sicilian government, concerned that a potential chain of volcanic islands might join Sicily with Tunisia, dispatched a warship to the site. The men who landed on the islet named it Ferdinandea in honour of their king, while at the same time members of the British fleet also at the site named it Graham.
The French as well sought to gain possession of the volcanic island. Envoy Prevost representing the Academy of Science named it Julie, comparing the recent eruption to a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne. At the time the island was 70 metres high and measured 700 metres in diameter. Noting the criss-cross structure of the strata of ashes, Prevost made observations with a modern ring about the volcano. But before diplomatic incidents involving the Sicilians, English and French could get underway in earnest the new island , eaten away by the waves, sunk back into the waters of the Mediterranean and disappeared forever on December 28, 1831.
The most recent data concerning the Tyrrhenian confirm certain only apparently surprising facts. To begin with, the tallest volcano in Europe is not Etna, but Marsili, which is also the largest, being 65 kilometres long and more than 3000 meters high. The only catch is that Marsili has been resting on the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea for over two million years now and, like Etna, is fully active. Likewise at the bottom of the Tyrrhenian is Vavilov, older than Marsili by 4-5 million years. In decades of oceanographic campaigns dozens of volcanoes and volcano-related phenomena of varying dimensions have been brought to light, which means that the sea bottom is much more agitated than was thought possible only fifty years ago. Very deep undersea valleys have also been discovered which form veritable canyons in the undersea plain off Sardinia and the Lipari group. In the strict sense of the word, however, these are not really new discoveries in that the presence of volcanoes in the Tyrrhenian has been known to researchers for some time, while the lava from them is familiar enough to have been thoroughly studied. Nor indeed is this the only valid reason for venturing into the story of a small ocean in the making right smack in the middle of two continents that have been on a collision course for millions of years.
What refocused public attention on the history of the Tyrrhenian Sea was the possibility that Marsili’s undersea eruption might cause tsunami, which is part of a story that began more than 10 million years ago and is far from being over. Considerable volcanic satellite activity is developing on the sides of Marsili; the craters of these satellites can reach the size of the crater on the island of Vulcano near the Lipari group. The collapse of sometimes enormous masses can take place under these circumstances, thus inducing fears of a tsunami in the near future which might affect the southern Italian coast. Such fears, it must be said, seems unfounded today in light of the sophisticated control systems that are going into operation in Sicily, among the latest of which is the Poseidon system, which monitors volcanoes in Sicily and earthquakes in the southern Tyrrhenian area.
Recent research on the Tyrrhenian has not, however, been limited to just the matter of risk: large concentrations of minerals useful to man – copper, lead and zinc – have been detected in the form of polymetal nodules wholly similar to those found in other ocean deeps and which will held meet the ever increasing demand for prime materials and other natural resources. There was also a surprise at the bottom: growths of white coral where, due to the absence of light, it would not seem possible to find any. Instead, the coral is hosted in unusual paleoclimatic and geological conditions within an ecosystem of great interest and suggestiveness. The rediscovery of the ancient sea of the Tyrrhenoi people (as the Etruscans were called by the Greeks, thus explaining the derivation of the name of the sea) has only just begun. New sirens are now casting their spell on marine geology scholars….