Montserrat volcano eruption

Welcome to montserratvolcano.org

This website is neither created nor owned by the residents of Montserrat but I hope that they will treat it as their property and help me develop it in whatever way they wish. Montserrat has been greatly troubled and partly laid waste by an erupting volcano for more than a decade. This has been peaceful (apart from occasional relatively small explosions) from early 2007 until just before the date when I was planning to publish the website (29 July 2008). During the previous night major new eruptive activity took place and the circumstances surrounding this are detailed on the MVO website, together with photos of both the 28 July deposits and their Gages Vent source, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mvo/. Since then lava extrusion has started, stopped and started again at Gages Vent. In addition, another vent opened on the NW side of the lava dome in early September 2008 and this produced some violent explosions (without any warning) on 3 January 2009. Subsequently, the eruption has paused again and the report of the 12th meeting of the international Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) at MVO in March 2009 suggested that further short (few weeks) periods of lava extrusion and sudden explosions might occur during the coming year. As the main extrusion vent had moved in December 2008 towards its "traditional" site atop the dome, the SAC considered that the risk had increased slightly of a future major dome collapse and/or explosion sending pyroclastic flows (PFs) into the Upper Belham Valley (via Tyer's Ghaut) and thus continuing to enlarge and smooth the growing debris fan there. Such debris fans make it easier for future PFs perhaps to reach the Lower Belham Valley -- a process seen earlier in the eruption, during the burial of Plymouth by PFs.

There is of course an excellent and comprehensive, recently redesigned, official Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) website [http://www.mvo.ms/] and you may think; “Why another one?” Just take a quick look at this one and decide for yourself if it is helpful to you. Whatever you decide, please let me know. This website is designed to be read with Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page] open at the same time on your computer. Whenever you find a word or phrase that needs more explanation, just type it into the search line of Wikipedia and read more about it there. For those of you who would like to see an overall account of the eruption at a more detailed and "scientific" level than this site, but less than MVO or the research literature, try Richard Roscoe.

I start with a short account of the most obvious thing – why is there a volcano on Montserrat? Most of you “know” the answer to this question but are split between two entirely different viewpoints. For some, it is part of God’s creation and that’s all there is to it. Others prefer the explanations worked out by scientists and this is the approach that I shall take here. Nevertheless, it’s essential to say at the outset that only this first theme will be seen differently by different residents. The following themes will be designed to be equally useful to all of you, by discussing practical matters about the eruption and its threats. Even strongly religious people may find that the following material about volcanic magma and lava domes is interesting.

Soufrière Hills from Jack Boy Hill (2007)

Bob Thompson

Soufrière Hills from St George's Hill (2007)

Steph Flude