Big Action at the Volcano in Montserrat!

This is my first post as a guest on this site. I am a helicopter pilot employed by Caribbean Helicopters in Antigua, and we do sightseeing tours around Antigua and to the Soufriere Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat, which is about 25 miles southwest of Antigua, or about 15 minutes flying time. We also do charter flights to other islands in the Leeward Islands and sometimes the Windward islands as well. Essentially I am a flying tour guide, and have been doing this for almost eleven years in Antigua.


As well, my company has held the contract to fly the scientists from the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) for the last three years. We fly directly from the pad at the MVO to observe the volcano and service many of the 22 or so monitoring sites around the volcano. Many of these sites are very close to the volcano and are in some very intersting locations! I take pride that I am doing something to help further the study of the volcano and maybe helping the people of Montserrat live safely on their ravaged island. This crisis has been on-going since 1995 and has destroyed what was once the capitol (Plymouth) and most of the villages and towns around the volcano. About 5,000 people still live (quite safely I might add) on the north end of the island away from the volcano.


I should add that this is a stratiform volcano (as are most of the volcanos in the eastern Caribbean arc), or Andesite volcano. What this means is that the lava emerges more as a red hot solid of about 700 C or more, so there is no lava flows. Instead the hot lava rock piles up on top and big pieces then break off and fall. These shatter into smaller and smaller fragments releasing hot gases and fine lava dust (otherwise known as ash), and can proceed down the slopes of the volcano as a minor rock fall or turn into a large avalanche of lava rock and hot ash and gas known as a Pyroclastic Flow (PF). They can move extremely fast and the ash clouds that are produced can rise thousands of feet in the air. This type of volcano in many ways can be much more dangerous than the generally wider known balsitic volcanos that people see on television.


This is my account of a large PF event I witnessed and sent in an email to my family on Oct.17, 2009:


I had an amazing tour yesterday around the volcano in Montserrat. As I was approaching the east coast of the island near the old airport I noticed that an ash cloud that appeared denser than normal was coming from the other side of the volcano. At first I thought it might be heavy venting but it had a couple of pulses so I thought it must be a pyroclastic flow. So I continued past the east side of the volcano where nothing was happening at all and then toward the gap between the volcano and the south soufriere hills (most southern hills on the island). Lately I have been going through that gap to get to Plymouth as the wind direction was blowing ash to the north of the old capital (Plymouth), so I was approaching the capital instead form the south on the west side of the island. Anyway, as I passed this gap I saw a huge ash cloud billowing up so I knew I couldn't go that way, lest I get caught in a huge ash cloud if something big were to happen. So all the way around the south I went and as I came out from behind the South Soufriere hills a huge ash cloud was coming out of the valley (White River) down from the volcano right into the sea, where it was rolling over the sea like it was on ball bearings.



The pyroclastic flows down White River.



The ash rolling across the sea, I am not sure how far out it went but it was a good demonstration of why there is a maritime exclusion zone of 2km around the volcano. The passengers were doing a lot of oohs and awws....loudly....so was I. This event was by far the biggest I have witnessed in over ten years flying around the volcano.



As you can see, I was quite far out to sea and at 3000 feet while all this was going on, that is Plymouth that is being blanketed by the ash cloud, which I believe went over twenty thousand feet ( I stand to be corrected on that). I was nervous that this could lead to a dome collapse and explosive behavior so I stayed quite far away.



Looking back towards the South Soufriere Hills and the gap that I often fly through is to the left of the hill and next to the ash cloud, that's why I avoided going through the gap. It was coming down in pulses, so I kept seeing fresh walls of ash racing down, you can see just below the gap that the cloud is very dense, a little bit of a new pyroclastic flow ash surge sticking above the dissipating ash as it rushes down to the sea. Steam coming off the water where the hot lava rock is boiling the water.



A better look at the steam coming off, and you can see the trees burning on the edge of the flow to the right. Wind is now blowing the loose ash off the top of the fresh PF.



This was taken on Tuesday by one of the scientists after another big pyroclastic flow but nowhere near the size of Friday's (yesterday, Oct.16). As I did on tuesday when this was taken, I went all the way back around to look towards Plymouth and it could not be seen due to the darkness that the ash cloud was causing, not to mention it was so thick over Plymouth that I couldn't see through it. So this shot is very similar to what it was like Friday when I did the same thing, passing the MVO where a huge crowd had gathered. I was not as close to the ash cloud as this appears, actually closer to the MVO. It was very dark and ominous looking compared to the bright sunshine on the other side of the ash cloud.

Absolutely the best day ever!!

The volcano has slowed down a little now, but who knows what may happen in the next few days and weeks. Check out the www.mvo.ms website for more info on what has been happening lately. As well you can stream live radio broadcasts at 4 pm Antigua time(3 pm eastern, 8 pm London I think) on-line from ZJB Radio Montserrat, 95.5 FM. Just Google it for the link. The MVO director Paul Cole does daily weekday updates at that time. You can also catch a friday evening interview weekly at 7:35 pm, replayed at 8:30 am Saturday.