Start Date: End Date: Published Date Data Date
Data acquired March 5, 2004 460 x 600 53 KB - JPEG
Data acquired March 5, 2004 920 x 1200 122 KB - JPEG
Days of seismic and volcanic activity finally reached critical mass on March 3, 2004, when Soufriere Hills Volcano’s lava-dome collapsed and an explosion sent an ash cloud roughly six kilometers up into the atmosphere, shown here in this true-color image from March 5, 2004. In this image, the ash plume is shown drifting southwestward from the summit of the volcano. Flows of hot ash, gasses, and rocks poured down the eastern flank of the volcano and along the Tar River. Though no ash fell in populated areas, earthquakes continued to shake the ground for hours, and a second, minor explosion with ash venting occurred mid-morning on March 5.
Soufriere Hills sits on the southern half of the island of Montserrat in the West Indies. Well-documented reports of eruptions have been coming in since 1995, though there has been non-eruptive activity consistently throughout the 20th century. For more information on the Soufriere Hills Volcano, please visit the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program website. This image was provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
Published March 8, 2004 Data acquired March 5, 2004