Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Volcano Blog: Soufriere Hills, Montserrat

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Volcano monitors say the Caribbean's Montserrat volcano has blasted a column of ash 40,000 feet (12 kilometers) high into the sky.

The director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory says late Monday's collapse of a dome at the crater sent bursts of volcanic material sweeping down into the island's abandoned former capital of Plymouth and the sea. The town was buried in a 1997 eruption that killed 19 people on the tiny Caribbean island.


Sounds like pyroclastic flows. You can have those without an actual eruption, since an active lava dome is made up of superheated magma.

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