Vom Feuer der Erde (2009)

The sabre-shaped peninsula resembles a gigantic powder keg at the eastern end of the world. 11 time zones lie between Moscow and the last outpost of the Russian giant empire. On the island between the Bering Sea in the west and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east, more than 160 volcanoes, countless geyser valleys and sulphur lakes on almost 370,000 square kilometres mark the visible framework for a phenomenon that geoscientists call the heart of the "Pacific Ring of Fire". Every year, tectonic forces push the Pacific Plate ten centimetres below the edge of Eurasia on a broad front. Daily earthquakes and volcanic eruptions shake the 1,200 kilometre long peninsula almost daily. Grey-yellow sulphur mud, poisonous vapours and black ash - it seethes in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Where the continental plate of Africa slides under the Eurasian one, volcanism developed. Little by little, mountains of fire rose from the sea and formed islands, which today lie like a seven star off the north coast of Sicily: Lipari, Vulcano, Stromboli, Salina, Panarea, Alicudi and Filicudi. Volcanism shapes the unique landscape of this Aeolian archipelago, fire mountains determine the life of the inhabitants. Some are mute and extinct, others still active like Stromboli or Vulcano. The first settlers arrived early, attracted by the fertile soil. Greeks and Romans lived on the Aeolian islands, traded worldwide with obsidian, the valuable volcanic glass rock. Today, geoscientists, archaeologists and biologists conduct research in this region on the edge of Europe.