Martinique

                                                        Mount Pelee

                                   

                                 The Mount Pelee which is an active volcano which is situated at the northern end of the island and French overseas department of Martinique on the lesser Antilles island arc of the Caribbean . The Mount Pelees volcanic cones are composed of layers of volcanic ash and hardened lavas. Mount Pelee(1379m / 4583 ft) is a volcano on the island of Martinique and erupted dramatically in 1902. On the northern tip of the Lesser Antilles island of Martinique it is considered the most regularly active volcano in the Caribbean.Pelee means bald in French and this probably refers to the denuded volcanic landscape the first French settlers saw in 1635. Martinique is one of the remaining outposts of France in the world and you can have proper croissants that taste as good as the one in France after a dip in the Caribbean. The volcano was last active 1930. In 1902 a catastrophic eruption destroyed the beautiful town of St.Pierre killing 30 000 people.Martinique owes its existence to volcanic acivity and is part of the Antilles Island Arc. Formed due to the subduction of oceanic crust of the North American Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate in a WSW direction at a rate of 2.2cm/year. As the oceanic plate descends magma is generated which gradually works its way to the surface ans ecentually erupts as a volcano.The oldest rocks on the island are 24 million years old and there are 8 volcanic centres. The Chemistry of the erupted rocks implies that the magmas for each centre came from different sources. The oldest lavas are andesitic lavas with a strong influence from tholeiitic magma which is high in Iron and Magnesian (tholeiitic melts are the same source and compostion as basalt lavas, same as oceanic crust). Around 16 million years ago melts became more calc-alkaline and richer in silica with more andesite erupted. This second phase is more typical of a mature volcanc arc.Mt. Pelee is a 400,000 year old stratovolcano and was formed mostly by violent explosive eruptions. The Nuee Ardentes of pyroclastic flows have been caused by dome collapse ( as on Montserrat) and eruption column collapse , where the upward eruption of material in a cloud cannot be maintained and the material collapses back to earth. Both types produce Nuee Ardentes or pyroclastic flows and the associated pumice ignimbrite deposits of ash and ejecta. The 1902 eruption was probably a lateral blast which contained little material but was composed of superheated steam,gas and some ash. Over the last 5000 years the volcano has alternated between Nuee Ardente and Plinian eruptions around every 750 years.

Mount Pelee Facts :

• Prominence                 : 1,397
• Elevation                      : 1,397
• mountain range          :  Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc
• coordinates                  : 14.8167 degree N, 61.1667 degree W
• Type                              : Stratovolcano