Was it created from the volcanic activity of the area? Or was it the result of some other geological process?
Sicily isn’t a volcanic island. The island came first. According to various animations I have seen of the breakup of Pangaea, it seems to be just a random bit that ended up not adhering to either Europe or Africa.
As **Silenus **said (partially nijaed again <shakes fist at Silenus>), Sicily sits on the edge of where the African plate subducts under the Eurasian plate. This causes an uplift of the surrounding crust above the Eurasian plate which includes the island of Sicily. Etna’s volcanic nature is a result of this same tectonic activity, but Sicily is not a volcanic island.
One of Charles Lyell’s key bits of evidence for his argument for deep geological time was the fact that the Sicilian rocks overlain by Etna’s lavas and ashes, are in fact relatively recent sediments, containing fossils not too different from still-living species. Etna itself has got to be pretty old, going by its size, but even these young sedimentary rocks must be older than Etna (as they are overlain by its lavas), and older sedimentary rocks, in lower strata, and with very different fossil populations, must be much older still.
Lyell, as you may know, was the most significant scientific influence upon Charles Darwin (as well as becoming his close friend and mentor). It was Lyell’s geology, and the huge vistas of geological time that it opened up, that allowed Darwinian evolutionary theory to seem plausible (not least to Darwin himself).
Thank you for that insight.
I was not aware of the details of how Lyell had formed his ideas about deep geological time.
James Burke does a nice analysis of Lyell and Etna in an episode of The Day The Universe Changed.
Respectfully submitted for your approval (But it’s not cued up to the segment on Etna. “And then he took a deep breath . . .”)
Thanks all!