Chances Peak is a summit of the

active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * "Active" (song), a 2024 song by Asake and Travis Scott from Asake's album ''Lungu Boy'' * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several com ...

complex

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...

named

Soufrière Hills The Soufrière Hills () is an active, complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. After a long period of dormancy, the Soufrière Hills volcano became active in 1995 and continued to e ...

, the youngest volcanic complex on the island of

Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...

, a

British overseas territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

located in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. It was the highest point on the island until the mid-1990s, when fluctuating volcanic domes during the 1995–1999 Soufrière Hills eruptions eclipsed the peak in height. The Soufriere Hills volcano is on a destructive plate margin, and is part of the Eastern Caribbean Volcanic Arc. This volcanic arc lies on the Caribbean plate, and has formed by subduction of the North American Plate beneath it. On 17 September 1965 a

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...

aircraft operating as Pan Am Flight 292 flew into Chances Peak near the summit and was destroyed, killing the 30 people on board.

English's Crater

In 1936, the British geologist Archie MacGregor carried out geological fieldwork across

, as a part of a

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

expedition in response to an ongoing seismic crisis. MacGregor noted that the peak of what he called Chance's Mountain formed the highest point on the island (3002 feet, at that time). Following discussions with a local resident, Thomas Savage English, MacGregor's mapping confirmed that the region to the East of Chance's Peak summit was a breached volcanic crater. MacGregor called this 'English's Crater', and identified this structure on the geological map which accompanied his report. MacGregor also confirmed English's interpretation, that English's Crater contained the

volcanic plug A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck or lava neck, is a volcano, volcanic object created when magma hardens within a Volcanic vent, vent on an active volcano. When present, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of high gas pressure if risi ...

or remnants of an old

volcanic dome In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular, mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions ...

, called Castle Peak or Castles Peak. The first recorded eruption of Montserrat of the modern era began within English's Crater, in July 1995.

Notes

References

{{reflist

External links

Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO)
- Current monitoring of the Soufrière Hills Volcano in

.
USGS Info on Soufrière Hills Volcano

British Geological Survey
Landforms of Montserrat Volcanoes of Montserrat Holocene stratovolcanoes Active volcanoes Mountains and hills of British Overseas Territories Complex volcanoes

English's Crater

See also

Notes

References

External links