Empedocles is a large underwater

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

located 40 km off the southern coast of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

named after the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

philosopher

Empedocles Empedocles (; grc-gre, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; , 444–443 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the ...

who believed that everything on Earth was made up of the

four elements Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simi ...

. According to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology ( it, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, INGV) is a research institute for geophysics and volcanology Volcanology (also spelled vulcanology) is the study of volcanoes, lava, mag ...

, the volcanic structure is around 400 meters high, with a base 30 km long and 25 km wide. Located in the Campi Flegrei del Mar di Sicilia (Phlegraean Fields of the Strait of Sicily), Empedocles is composed of what was once believed to be separate volcanic centers, including

Graham Island Graham Island () is the largest island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago (previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), lying off the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is separated by the narrow Skidegate Channel from the other pr ...

(Ferdinandea).Volcano larger than Washington D.C. discovered

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

Scientists discover huge underwater volcano

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The volcano shows no sign of erupting in the near future. While the volcano's top is now 7 meters below

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

, it was once visible above the water. In 1831 Empedocles broke the surface as Graham Island (Ferdinandea) and almost caused a major international incident when several countries tried to claim ownership of it. It disappeared into the water again five months later.Massive underwater volcano found

CBBC Newsround ''Newsround'' (stylised as ''newsround'', and originally called ''John Craven's Newsround'' before his departure in 1989) is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972. It was one of the world's first tele ...

(published and accessed on June 23, 2006).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Empedocles (Volcano) Volcanoes of Italy Submarine volcanoes Landforms of Sicily Seamounts of the Mediterranean