PRESSURE MOUNTAIN

Killer Volcano Reawakens After Decades of Silence

Scientists have detected heightened seismic activity.

A deadly volcano that claimed the lives of 30,000 people may have reawakened. Some 1,500 miles southeast of Florida, the Caribbean island of Martinique is home to the imposing Mount Pelée, which in 1902 erupted with such violence that it launched a superheated gas cloud into the air and ripped through the nearby town of Saint-Pierre in minutes. Between July 24 and 31 this year, scientists recorded 124 earthquakes, with the Martinique Volcanological and Seismological Observatory saying that that month the island had been rocked a total of 331 times. While earthquakes do not prove for certain that a volcano is active, they are often caused by magma pushing up against the rock beneath the volcano, which can cause it to rupture. Experts have not said there is an immediate threat, although several inches of ground displacement have also been recorded by experts around its summit. In an alert, the observatory said, “The probability of eruptive activity in the short term remains low,” but noted that the displacements observed “are consistent with deformation of the volcanic edifice induced by an inflating pressure source located at a depth of approximately 1 km (0.6 miles) beneath the summit.”