The Soufriere Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat continued producing a plume of ash and steam on September 1, 2006. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, the volcano’s plume blows westward over the Caribbean, gradually dissipating as it goes.
The Soufriere Hills Volcano is a stratovolcano composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, rock, and ash. Beginning in 1995, a series of serious eruptions from the volcano forced the evacuation of part of the island of Montserrat and eventually destroyed the capital city of Plymouth.
References & Resources
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Earth Sciences DAAC.
