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

欧洲最活跃的火山埃特纳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 Mediterranean¹ at a rate of 14mm per year.

科学家们已经确定，这一位于意大利西西里岛上的整座火山正以每年14毫米的速度向地中海方向倾斜。

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

英国领导的团队表示，这种情况需要仔细监控，因为这可能会导致未来埃特纳火山的危害增加。

"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 acceleration² in this motion," Dr John Murray told BBC News.

约翰·默里博士向BBC新闻透露：“我想说，目前情况的还不用紧张，但是我们需要密切关注，尤其是看看这个趋势是否会加速。”

The Open University geologist³ has spent almost half a century studying Europe's premier⁴ volcano.

这位来自开放大学的地质学家，已经用了近半个世纪的时间来研究这座欧洲著名火山。

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

在这段时间里，默里在火山周围设置了一个高精度GPS网络，以监测它的变化。

This instrumentation is sensitive to millimetric changes in the shape of the volcanic⁵ cone⁶; and with 11 years of data it is now obvious that the mountain is moving in an east-south-east direction.

GPS观测站能够察觉到细微至毫米的火山锥体形状的变化；根据11年来的数据显示，很明显，这座山正朝着东-南-东的方向移动。

Essentially⁷, Etna is sliding down a very gentle slope of 1-3 degrees. This is possible because it is sitting on an underlying⁸ platform of weak, pliable⁹ sediments¹⁰.

本质上，埃特纳火山倾斜滑塌了1至3度的斜度。这是可能的，因为它坐落在一个薄弱而柔软的沉积物平台上。

Dr Murray's team has conducted lab experiments to illustrate¹¹ how this works. The group believes it is the first time that basement sliding of an entire active volcano has been directly observed.

默里博士的团队通过实验室实验，向人们演示了这是怎么发生的。该团队认为，这是第一次直接观察到整个活火山的基底滑动。

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.

默里博士及其同事强调，这种行为非常罕见，可能需要几百年甚至几千年的时间才能发展到一个关键阶段。

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.

当然，目前绝对没有证据表明这即将发生在埃特纳。开放大学的科学家表示，当地居民不应该对此感到惊慌。