Partial Dome Collapse at Soufriere Hills

[PPI Brian]

With the world's attention focused on the devastation in Haiti you might not have heard about the other massive geologic event that occurred in the Caribbean last week. Fortunately, NASA's Aqua sattellite captured iamges of the event.

At 12:35 p.m. local time on February 11, 2010, Soufrire Hills Volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat experienced a partial dome collapse. Lasting nearly an hour, the event sent a plume 15,240 meters (50,000 feet) skyward, and sent pyroclastic flows -avalanches of hot gas and debris- some 300 to 400 meters (980 to 1,200 feet) out to sea. The pyroclastic flows destroyed many buildings in the village of Harris north of Sourfrire Hills, and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory described the dome collapse as the most severe incident since May 2006.

Here's a link:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42688&src=iotdrss

[Gary]

Wow, that is incredible!    :o

[Damian]

WHOA!   :o

I'm impressed by the clarity of those satelite images too!  Very cool!

[ljiljanac]

Thanks for posting that and sharing!!  I'm a volcano freak!!!!!