Finally here!

Sicily! Here we are!!! Ah che bello!! BUT! It had to start Sicilian way: chaotic. It was back and forth to the airport from Misterbianco (our home base) to pick up incoming participants. Adding drivers to the rental contract was like pulling teeth from a rabies infected dog, because of german tourists who couldn’t speak English or Italian… Anyways, we are staying at “Orange Park”, an “agriturismo”, which is an active farm with rooms and kitchen. This is our home for 7 days. The housekeeper is Umpatissa, a very cool Sri Lankan fella, who is always bearing a smile! The place has a pool, a perfect place to relax after hard days in the field. The next day (September 2), we were meeting with Professoressa Serafina Carbone, a geophysicist at the University of Catania, along with a purist of a Sicilian: Mario Cosentino, suave, overweight, smoking a cigar, talking with the ladies, a true Sicilian. We drove through the small roads on the side of Mt Etna to the locality where the Pernicana fault, displaced the road (while the road was fixed, the protective wall was clearly displaced).We hiked a little to an abandoned farm, where a 200 year old was sliced and one side displayed almost 5m because of the fault!! We also saw a house built in the 70s, abandoned, because it was built on the fault itself, so it is in danger of collapse, its foundations being displaced a little every year. Quite a statement to the power of nature, nothing we can build can withstand anything nature throws at us.
Our drive back took us via Sant’Alfio, a quaint town on Etna which hosts the oldest tree in Europe, next to a bunch of chestnut trees, where we had lunch.
Our next stop was our first field stop, meaning we took out our tools: measuring rods, rock hammers, hand lenses, bottles of acid etc…, in the beautiful location of Aci Castello, which houses a Norman Castle of the 12th century. At Aci Castello, we examined the basement of Mt. Etna, so rocks that existed prior to the orogeny (mountain building event) of Mt. Etna. We found pillow basalts (lava erupted under water) with clay “oozed” in between them. After measuring the profiles of several marine terraces, we saw a clear contact between lava erupted under water and lava erupted on land! Clearly, this is the marine, to terrestrial transition, and represents sea level several million years ago! Too cool! After this exercize, we drove back to Misterbianco via rush-hour Catania… what fun! Red lights, lanes, priorities.. all those are suggestions in rush hour traffic.. no conservative driving allowed! Anyways, we returned home and made dinner, but Mimi got us Etna wine.. oh gosh, so bad!! Couldn’t believe it. Luckily, she got some other red that was stunning.. But Dave surprised us with a bottle of Grappa with Mirtilli.. oh man.. what a way to end dinner! Tomorrow: more exciting activities!