西西里島埃特納火山正滑向大海的英語美文

Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna, is sliding towards the sea.

歐洲最活躍的火山埃特納火山正在向大海滑行。

Scientists have established that the whole structure on the Italian island of Sicily is edging in the direction of the Mediterranean at a rate of 14mm per year.

科學家們已經確定，位於意大利西西里島上的整個火山以每年14毫米的速度向地中海方向傾斜。

The UK-led team says the situation will need careful monitoring because it may lead to increased hazards at Etna in the future.

英國領導的團隊表示，這種情況需要仔細監控，因為這可能會導致未來埃特納火山的危害增加。

The group has published its findings in the Bulletin of Volcanology.

該小組在《火山學通報》中發表了其發現。

"I would say there is currently no cause for alarm, but it is something we need to keep an eye on, especially to see if there is an acceleration in this motion," lead author Dr John Murray told BBC News.

“我想説目前沒有理由警惕，但這是我們需要密切關注的事情，尤其是看看這個趨勢是否會加速，”主要作者約翰-默裏博士告訴BBC新聞。

The Open University geologist has spent almost half a century studying Europe’s premier volcano.

這位來自開放大學的地質學家花費了近半個世紀的時間來研究這坐歐洲最重要的火山。

In that time, he has placed a network of high-precision GPS stations around the mountain to monitor its behaviour.

那時，他在山上放置了一個高精度GPS站點網絡來監測它的'行為。

This instrumentation is sensitive to millimetric changes in the shape of the volcanic cone; and with 11 years of data it is now obvious, he says, that the mountain is moving in an east-south-east direction, on a general track towards the coastal town of Giarre, which is about 15km away.

該儀器對火山錐體形狀的毫米級變化敏感;根據11年的數據，現在很明顯，他説，這座山正在向東南方向移動，沿着一條通往約15公里外沿海城市Giarre的一般軌道行進。

Essentially, Etna is sliding down a very gentle slope of 1-3 degrees. This is possible because it is sitting on an underlying platform of weak, pliable sediments.

本質上，埃特納正在以非常平緩的斜坡滑落1-3度。這是可能的，因為它坐落在一個弱而柔軟的沉積物平台上。

Dr Murray’s team has conducted lab experiments to illustrate how this works. The group believes it is the first time that basement sliding of an entire active volcano has been directly observed.

默裏博士的團隊進行了實驗室實驗來説明這是怎麼發生的。該小組認為，這是第一次直接觀察到整個活火山的地基滑動。

On the human scale, a movement of 14mm/yr - that is 1.4m over a hundred years - will seem very small, and it is. But geological investigations elsewhere in the world have shown that extinct volcanoes that display this kind of trend can suffer catastrophic failures on their leading flank as they drift downslope.

在人類尺度上，14毫米/年的運動，即在百年內為1.4米，這看起來非常小，而且的確是這樣。但世界其他地方的地質調查顯示，出現這種趨勢的死火山可能會在它們向下傾斜時在前側面發生災難性的失敗。

Stresses can build up that lead eventually to devastating landslides.

壓力可能會最終導致毀滅性山體滑坡。

Dr Murray and colleagues stress such behaviour is very rare and can take many centuries, even thousands of years, to develop to a critical stage.

默裏博士及其同事強調，這種行為非常罕見，可能需要幾百年甚至幾千年的時間才能發展到關鍵階段。

Certainly, there is absolutely no evidence that this is about to happen at Etna. Local residents should not be alarmed, the Open University scientist said.

當然，絕對沒有證據表明這即將發生在埃特納。開放大學的科學家説，當地居民不應該感到驚慌。