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Volcanoes of the Caribbean

Make your own erupting Volcanoes at bottom of page

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	Volcanoes can be found in many of the Caribbean islands from Grenada in the south to St. Kits/Nevis in the north of the Caribbean Chain..
>	An underwater volcano called "Kick em Jenny" may become the Caribbean's newest island. The Kick 'em Jenny volcano, 6 miles north of the island, began erupting in 1939, when it spit an 886-foot cloud of ash into the sky above the water. Since then it has erupted more mildly at least 12 times. Scientists from the Trinidad campus of the University of the West Indies began their visit, using a small submarine resistant to high temperatures in a series of dives. Kick 'em Jenny is the only active underwater volcano in the Caribbean, though there is one other erupting volcano on the British Caribbean island of Montserrat. Scientists originally feared Kick 'em Jenny was growing toward the water's surface, and that large eruptions eventually could cause tidal waves. In 2002, however, a group of scientists discovered that though the summit is just 560 feet underwater, the volcano is venting farther down on the mountain at 880 feet. Researchers say they don't expect the volcano to break the surface and form a new volcanic island any time soon. The volcano's last major eruption began Dec. 4, 2001, and lasted two days. Although nothing was detected at the water's surface, earthquakes were felt throughout northern Grenada.
	Soufriere of the island of St. Vincent is about 180 miles (300 km) south of the volcano with the same name on Guadeloupe. Soufriere on St. Vincent is a far more dangerous volcano. It is a stratovolcano with a crater lake. Violent eruption occurred in 1718, 1812, and 1902. The 1902 eruption killed 1,600 people. There were also eruptions in 1971-1972 and 1979. The 1979 eruption started with less than 24 hours of precursor activity. The first episode lasted less than two weeks. It was vulcanian in character and sent steam and tephra as high as 12 miles (20 km). The second episode consisted of the quiet extrusion of a basaltic andesite lava dome. People were successfully evacuated and there were no fatalities.
	Whereas all the other volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles have only one active volcano, Dominica has nine the highest concentration of "live" volcanoes in the world, and yet there has been no major eruption since Columbus visited the island and as a result it has today the best and most extensively preserved tropical rainforests. Morne Patates volcano at the southern tip of Dominica,has two lava domes, 411-m-high Morne Patates on the north and 520-m-high Crabier on the south, lie below an arcuate scarp that may have formed by slope failure. The domes are surrounded by aprons of associated block-and-ash-flow deposits.The only recorded volcanic activity on Dominica was a steam explosion in the Valley of Desolation in 1880. The Valley of Desolation is in south-central Dominica, within a thermal area which includes the Boiling Lake - a 50 m diameter body of water that is in a constant state of boiling.
	Mount Pelee in Martinique. An extremely destructive eruption accompanied the growth of a dome at Mount Pelee in 1902. The coastal town of St. Pierre, about 4 miles downslope to the south, was demolished and nearly 30,000 inhabitants were killed by an incandescent, high-velocity ash flow , hot gases and volcanic dust. THE SURVIVORS Although there were only two survivors in St. Pierre, there were other survivors on the outskirts of the town and in some of the ships moored in the harbour. Mercifully, death came quickly to those that perished. Some died by the sheer force of the blast, but most died within a few seconds after inhaling the scorching fumes and ash of the pyroclastic flow. The tales of the two male survivors of St. Pierre are described here, as well as the astonishing story of a young girl who looked straight into the mouth of a volcanic vent just before Mt. Pelée began to erupt. Here is her experience:

THE LITTLE GIRL
One of the most incredible escapes from Mt. Pelée was that of a young girl named Havivra Da Ifrile. Very early in the morning of May 8, Havivra was on her way to services at the cathedral in St. Pierre when her mother sent her on an errand.
She was to walk to her aunt's pastry shop near a local tourist attraction known as the Corkscrew. The "Corkscrew" was named after a tourist trail that wound down into an ancient crater, located halfway up the flank of the volcano.
As Havivra approached the Corkscrew, she noticed smoke rising from the crater. After looking into the crater, she described it in this manner:
"There I saw the bottom of the pit all red, like boiling, with little blue flames coming from it." She apparently saw three people trying to run up the Corkscrew before they were engulfed in ". . . a puff of blue smoke . . " and ". . . fell as if killed." She fled toward St. Pierre.
"Just as I got to the main street I saw this boiling stuff burst from the top of the Corkscrew and run down the side of the hill. It followed the road first, but then as the stream got bigger, it ate up the houses on both sides of the road. Then I saw that a boiling red river was coming from another part of the hill and cutting off the escape of the people who were running from their houses."
Frightened, Havivra ran to the shore and jumped into her brother's small boat and headed along the shore to a cave that she used to play pirate in with her friends. "But before I got there I looked back -- and the whole side of the mountain which was near the town seemed to open and boil down on the screaming people. I was burned a good deal by the stones and ashes that came flying about the boat, but I got to the cave."
While in the safety of the cave, she heard a hissing sound as the hot pyroclastic debris entered the water. The last thing she remembered before lapsing into unconsciousness was the water rising rapidly toward the roof of the cave. She was later found by the French cruiser Suchet drifting two miles out to sea in her charred and broken boat.

THE CONVICTED FELON
The only other known survivor in St. Pierre became a minor celebrity. He was a husky 25-year-old roustabout named Louis-Auguste Cyparis, locally known simply as "Samson".
In early April, Samson was put in jail for wounding one of his friends with a cutlass. Towards the end of his sentence, he escaped from a labouring job in town, danced all night, and then turned himself into the authorities the following morning. For this, he was sentenced to solitary confinement for a week in the prison's dungeon.
On May 8, he was alone in his dungeon with only a small grated opening cut into the wall above the door. While waiting for his breakfast, his cell became dark and he was overcome by intense gusts of hot air mixed with ash that had entered through the grated opening. He held his breath while experiencing intense pain. After a few moments, the heat subsided. He was severally burned, but managed to survive for four days before he was rescued by people exploring the ruins of St. Pierre.
After he recovered, he received a pardon and eventually joined the Barnum & Bailey Circus, where he toured the world billed as the "Lone Survivor of St. Pierre."
THE SHOEMAKER
A young shoemaker, Léon Compere-Léandre, was sitting on his doorstep when the nuée ardente hit. Although he was severely burnt he survived, partly because of his good health, but also because his house was near the edge of the pyroclastic flow.
"I felt a terrible wind blowing, the earth began to tremble, and the sky suddenly became dark. I turned to go into the house, with great difficulty climbed the three or four steps to my room, and felt my arms and legs burning, and body. I dropped upon a table.
At this moment four others sought refuge in my room, crying and writhing with pain, although their garments showed no sign of having been touched by flame. At the end of 10 minutes one of these, the young Delavaud girl, aged about 10 years, fell dead; the others left. I got up and went to another room, where I found the father Delavaud, still clothed and lying on the bed, dead. He was purple and inflated, but the clothing was intact.
Crazed and almost overcome, I threw myself on a bed, inert and awaiting death. My senses returned to me in perhaps an hour, when I beheld the roof burning. With sufficient strength left, my legs bleeding and covered with burns, I ran to Fonds-Sait-Denis, six kilometres from St. Pierre."

The Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat, began erupting on July 18 1995,this is the first recorded eruption in historic times. A puff of ash announced to the residents that after millennia of slumber, the island's dominant landmark, the Soufriere Hills volcano, had come to life. Over the following days, repeated steam explosions accompanied by ashfalls and earthquake swarms raised the possibility that a major eruption might be imminent. By August 8, officials evacuated the sick and elderly from the southern half of the island. On August 21, a strong burst of steam carried a cloud of ash to an altitude of 7,000 feet, plunging the capital city of Plymouth into darkness. The steam rising above the old volcano is for the most part multi-million-year-old ocean water. After the scare of August 21, the Soufriere Hills volcano settled down to a routine of hissings and rumblings that continue to the present.

Make your own erupting Volcanoes of the Caribbean

In a real volcano, molten rock from deep within the Earth erupts through a volcano (the molten rock is called magma when it is within the Earth and is called lava when it comes out of a volcano).

Warning: Be careful when handling ingredients.
Children should be supervised by an adult.
Ingredients should be kept away from the eyes.

Supplies:

Old plate or baking pan or paper plate
Lots of old newspaper
Baking soda (about 3-4 tablespoons)
Vinegar (about 1/2 cup)
A few drops of liquid dishwashing detergent
Small plastic bottle (like a small pop bottle)
Modeling clay(Play Dough)
Funnel
Measuring spoon and measuring cup
Red and yellow food coloring
Glitter (optional)

Your volcano can be made more realistic by enclosing the bottle in a home made play dough.
Mix 6 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt, 4 tablespoons of cooking oil, and 2 cups of water in a large bowl.

Mix the ingredients by hand until smooth and firm. Add more water to make the mixture if necessary.
Build up the mixture around the drink bottle to create the mountain.
Lava channels and vegetation can be built around the volcano. Using the modeling clay, make a volcano around the bottle. Leave the area around the top of the bottle open and don't get any clay inside the bottle.

You can decorate the volcano with little twigs, lichens (that look like tiny trees), etc.

1/Put the clean, empty bottle on the plate or baking pan or paper plate.
2/Using the funnel (make sure it's dry), put 3 to 4 tablespoons of baking soda into the bottle.
3/The add a few drops of liquid dishwashing detergent and about a half cup of water. Optional: add a little bit of glitter (about half a teaspoon).
4/Put a few drops of red food coloring into about one-half of a cup of vinegar.

The Eruption
:5/ Using the funnel, pour the vinegar mixture into the bottle (then quickly remove the funnel and jump back).

Your volcano will erupt immediately!

Be prepared for a mess and clean it up!

This happens because of the baking soda and vinegar mixture. Mixing baking soda and vinegar produces a chemical reaction (a chemical reaction is a process in which one substance is chemically converted to another - all chemical reactions involve the formation or destruction of bonds between atoms) in which carbon dioxide gas is created - the same gas that bubbles in a real volcano. The gas bubbles build in the bottle, forcing the liquid 'lava' mixture of the bottle and down the sides of your volcano

The exact reaction is:

HC₂H₃O₂ (vinegar = acetic acid) + NaHCO₃ (baking soda = sodium bicarbonite) = CO₂ (carbon dioxide gas) + NaC₂H₃O₂(sodium acetate) + H₂O (water)

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