Plymouth, the former capital city and major port of Montserrat, July
12, 1997, after pyroclastic flows had burned much of what was
not covered in ash.
The Soufrière
Hills volcano (French
"Sulphur" Hills) is an active
complex stratovolcano with
many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
After a long period of dormancy it became active in 1995, and has
continued to erupt ever since.
Main article: Geography of Saint Lucia
The volcanic island of Saint Lucia is more mountainous than many other Caribbean
islands, with the highest point being Mount Gimie, at 950 metres (3,120 ft)
above sea level. Two other mountains, the Pitons, form the island's most famous landmark. They
are located between Soufrière and Choiseul on the western side of the island. Saint Lucia is also one
of the few islands in the world that boasts a drive-in
volcano.
Mount Scenery, Saba. The Netherlands Antilles.
Mount Scenery is a lava dome which forms the summit of
the Saba
island stratovolcano. At an elevation of 877 m. The Saba volcano is potentially dangerous; the
latest eruption was in or around the year 1640 and included explosions and pyroclastic flows.
Stratovolcano Rhyolite Obsidian Scource
The island Grenada itself is the largest island; smaller Grenadines
are Carriacou,
Petit Martinique, Ronde Island, Caille
Island, Diamond Island, Large Island, Saline
Island and Frigate Island. The islands are
of volcanic origin with extremely
rich soil. Grenada’s interior is very mountainous with Mount St. Catherine being the
highest at 2,756 feet (840 m).
The north of the island
is mountainous and lushly forested. It features 4 ensembles of pitons and mornes: the
Piton Conil on the extreme North, which dominates the Dominica Channel, the Mount
Pelee, an active volcano, the Morne Jacob, and the Pitons du Carbet, an ensemble of 5
rainforest-covered extinct volcanoes dominating the Bay of Fort de France at 1,196 meters.
The most dominating of the island's many mountains, with 1397 meters, is the
infamous volcano Mount Pelée. The
volcanic ash has created grey and black sand beaches in the north (in particular between
Anse Ceron and Anse des Gallets), contrasting markedly from the white
Mount Pelée The volcano
is now famous for its extremely destructive eruption in 1902 and the destruction that
resulted, now dubbed the worst volcanic disaster
of the 20th century.[1][2]
The eruption killed about 30,121 people,[3][4] most deaths in the destroyed Saint-Pierre, at that time the
largest city in Martinique, due to its deadly pyroclastic flows.[5]
Saint Vincent is a volcanic
island in the Caribbean,
the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint
Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains. La Soufrière is still an active volcano . [1]
[1] ^ Rogozinski, Jan (1999). A
Brief History of the Caribbean (Revised ed.). New York: Facts on File, Inc..
pp. 358–359. ISBN
0-8160-3811-2.
St. Kitts is six miles (10 km) away from Saint Eustatius to the north and two miles (3 km) from Nevis to the
south. St. Kitts has
three distinct groups of volcanic peaks: the North West or Mount Misery Range; the Middle or
Verchilds Range and the South East or Olivees Range. The highest peak is Mount Liamuiga,
formerly Mount Misery, a dormant volcano some 3,792 feet (1,156 m) high.
V53A MCC:level 1 Friday 1340h
Rates and Timescales of Magmatic Processes III Posters
Presiding:A J Pietruszka, San Diego State University; J Grocott, Kingston University
V53A-0601 1340h
Time Evolution of the Basse Terre Island (Guadeloupe, French West Indies) Effusive Volcanism from New K-Ar Cassignol-Gillot Ages.
Radiometric dating and geochemistry of effusive volcanics have been combined with
geomorphological observations in order to provide a general evolution model of the
volcanic island of Basse Terre, Guadeloupe (French West Indies). More than forty new
Cassignol-Gillot K-Ar ages distributed within the entire island, together with the twenty
ages (Blanc, 1983; Carlut et al., 2000) previously obtained with the same technique, makes
the Guadeloupe Island the best place to study the evolution of volcanic
processes within the Lesser Antilles Arc. Dating was performed on the carefully
separated groundmass in order to avoid K loss due to weathering and excess argon carried
by mafic minerals. Ages obtained are relatively younger than previously thought on
Basse Terre and range from a few ka to 2.79+-0.04 Ma. When available, the
paleomagnetic polarity of the dated flows agree with the GPTS and a very good coherence of
ages is observed for each massif. Our results demonstrate the general north to south
migration of volcanism through time. It correlates with the main volcanic stages
previously identified. The 2.75 Ma Basal Complex, the 1.81+-0.03 \_ 1.15+-0.02 Ma
Septentrional Chain, the 1.02+-0.02 Ma \_ 0.606+-0.02 Ma Axial Chain, the 442+-6 \_
207+-28 ka Mateliane \_ Sans Toucher Complex and the $<$ 200 ka Complex of La Grande
Decouverte, which outlines a relative continuity in the Basse Terre magmatism. Lavas are
mainly basaltic andesites and andesites although a few basalt and dacite have also been
dated. All of them are characterized by low MgO values ($<$ 6 %), tholeiitic to
calc-alkaline REE chondrite-normalized patterns and are of both low K and medium K
affinity. Lavas display geochemical characteristics similar to that of the central islands
of the Lesser Antilles arc. Within Basse Terre, geochemical characteristics are relatively
constant through time, indicating no major change of volcanic processes during the whole
subaerial activity. Finally the detailed chronological framework now available provides
new constraints for estimating rates of edification and destruction at the island scale
and, more generally, to help better understand the evolution of the still active
Guadeloupe island Soufriere volcano.
