What you can see on the Campi Flegrei cams
The view is Pisciarelli, the field of steam vents and boiling mud next to the Solfatara crater and one of the most active spots in the caldera, shown together with live seismic data, so the small earthquakes that come with the ground movements can be followed as they happen.
The Pisciarelli steam vent with live seismic data
This livestream puts the Pisciarelli fumarole, just outside the Solfatara crater, beside the instruments that watch the caldera. In the top left a thick white jet of steam bursts out of a scrubby hillside, with the buildings and roads of the Pozzuoli area spread out behind it. Below run live seismic traces labelled by type, from micro-events to deep signals, and on the right a column lists the latest earthquakes with their magnitude and depth.
Pisciarelli is the most vigorous fumarole in Campi Flegrei, and its steam is one of the clearest signs of the unrest beneath the caldera. The panel makes it easy to see a swarm of small quakes as it happens.
Bradyseism
The ground at Campi Flegrei slowly rises and falls, a movement called bradyseism. Since 2005 it has been rising again, by well over a metre in Pozzuoli, with swarms of small earthquakes. Some of these, in 2024 and 2025, reached magnitude 4 and above and damaged buildings. Scientists at INGV’s Vesuvius Observatory monitor the caldera closely, and the Italian authorities have evacuation plans for the area.
The caldera was formed by two huge eruptions, 39,000 and about 15,000 years ago. Its last eruption, in 1538, built the small cone of Monte Nuovo in a few days.
When to watch Campi Flegrei
The seismograph is worth watching at any hour. The steam at Pisciarelli is most visible on cool, humid mornings.
Around Campi Flegrei
In Pozzuoli, the columns of the Roman market known as the Temple of Serapis carry marks left by marine molluscs, proof that the ground here has sunk below the sea and risen again over the centuries. Offshore, the Roman town of Baia now lies underwater and can be visited by boat or while diving. Lake Avernus, a flooded crater, was believed in ancient times to be the entrance to the underworld.
