From natural history to volcanology

An account on the development of studies on Mt. Etna at the University of Catania

Abstract

A synthetic outline is given of the development of the investigations devoted to Mount Etna at the University of Catania, within a frame of progressively specializing and growing scientific knowledge and research techniques between the end of the 18th and the first half of the 20th century. At this stage, a gradual "gemmation" of new disciplines occurred from the original "Natural History", from which "Botany" was separated first in 1788. After the new School of Sciences, distinct from Medicine, was established in 1840, "Natural History" was divided into "Zoology" and "Mineralogy and Geology" (1852). In this context, after the important contributions to volcanology given by Carlo Gemmellaro (1787-1866), new specifically volcanological interests started growing with Orazio Silvestri in 1878, when the chair of Earth Physical Chemistry particularly addressed to the study of Etna (1877) and the Etnean Volcanological Observatory, hosted in the shortly earlier built Astronomical Observatory, were established. When Silvestri died in 1890, these activities had an end or were drastically cut down. A Geodynamic section was operating until 1919 at the Etnean site of the Astronomical Observatory, directed by Annibale Riccò, whose scientific facilities and related activities were gradually transferred and promoted at the former Benedictine Abbey in Catania, whereas some research on etnean products went on under the direction of Lorenzo Bucca at the Institute and Mineralogy and Geology, divided in 1904 into the ones of Geology (Platania) and of Mineralogy (Bucca). Since 1905, the latter one was named Institute of Mineralogy and Volcanology, and the chair of Volcanology, held by Gaetano Ponte, was established in 1920. Since 1926, he directed the newly set up Volcanological Institute, the first one in Europe, to which the restored Etnean Observatory was assigned in 1933. After Ponte retired in 1949, several professors, little involved in volcanological research, were in charge of the direction of the Institute, and activities at the Observatory went gradually to an end, whereas teaching and investigations went on being carried out by an assistant lecturer, Salvatore Cucuzza Silvestri. When in 1958 Alfred Rittmann was charged with the direction of the Institute and of the course of Volcanology, he reorganized the museum collections, equipped a chemical laboratory for rock analysis, and expanded research activities on Sicilian volcanoes. After Rittmann retired in 1963, Leo Ogniben, professor of Geology for the recently instituted Earth sciences degree course, and charged with the direction of the related Institutes, gave a substantial impulse to volcanological studies by addressing a growing teaching and research staff to interdisciplinary investigations on Mount Etna and the Hyblean Plateau, within a frame of developing geological knowledge in Sicily and Southern Apennines, by promoting also the geological surveying of large sectors in SE Sicily, where volcanic activity took place. In the meanwhile, instrumental facilities for petrologic-geochemical and geophysical investigations were also significantly increased.