Source: http://mywallpapers.mobi/mount-pel%C3%A9e-100-years-after-the-world-39-2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:37:07+00:00

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The main eruption, on 8 May 1902, left only two survivors in the direct path of the blast flow: Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon -like jail cell ; Léon Compère-Léandre , living on the edge of the city, escaped with severe burns.  Havivra Da Ifrile, a young girl, reportedly escaped with injuries during the eruption by taking a small boat to a cave down the shore, and was later found adrift 3 km (1.9 mi) from the island, unconscious. The event marked the only major volcanic disaster in the history of France and its overseas territories.
Volcanologists have identified three different phases in the evolution of Mount Pelée volcano: initial, intermediate, and modern.  In an initial phase, called the “Paléo-Pelée” stage, Mount Pelee was a common stratovolcano. The cone of Paléo-Pelée was composed of many layers of lava flows and fragmented volcanic debris. Remains of the Paléo-Pelée cone are still visible at the northern view at the volcano today.
The modern stage of the evolution of Mount Pelée has created most of the current cone, with deposits of pumice and the results of past pyroclastic flows. More than 30 eruptions have been identified during the last 5,000 years of the volcano’s activity.
Before the tragic 1902 eruption, as early as mid-1900, signs of increased fumarole activity were present in the Étang Sec (Dry Pond) crater near the summit.  Relatively minor phreatic (steam) eruptions that occurred in 1792 and 1851 were evidence that the volcano was active and potentially dangerous. Local natives, the Carib people, knew it as “fire mountain” from previous eruptions in ancient times.
At 11:30 p.m. on 2 May the mountain produced loud explosions, earthquakes and a massive pillar of dense black smoke. Ashes and fine-grained pumice covered the entire northern half of the island. The detonation continued in 5–6 hour intervals. This led the local newspaper Les Colonies to indefinitely postpone the proposed picnic on the mountain, originally planned for May 4. Farm animals started dying from hunger and thirst, as their sources of water and food were contaminated with ash.
On Monday, 5 May the mountain apparently calmed down somewhat; however, at about 1:00 p.m., the sea suddenly receded about 100 metres (330 ft) and then rushed back, flooding parts of the city, and a large cloud of smoke appeared westwards of the mountain. One wall of the Étang Sec crater collapsed and propelled a mass of boiling water and mud, or lahar , into Blanche River, flooded the Guérin sugar works and buried about 150 victims under 60 metres (200 ft) to 90 metres (300 ft) of mud. Refugees from other areas rushed into Saint-Pierre. That night, the atmospheric disturbances disabled the electric grid , sank the city into darkness and added to the confusion.
On Wednesday, 7 May at around 04:00, the mountain stepped up its activity; the clouds of ash caused numerous bolts of volcanic lightning around the mountaintop, and both the craters glowed reddish orange into the night. Through the day, people were leaving the city, but more people from the countryside were attempting to find refuge in the city, increasing its population by several thousand. The newspapers still claimed the city was safe. News of the volcano Soufrière erupting on the nearby Saint Vincent island reassured the people that the internal pressures in the mountain were being relieved. Not everyone was reassured. Captain Marina Leboffe, of the barque Orsolina, left the harbor with only half of the sugar cargo loaded, despite shippers’ protests, clearance refused by the port authorities, and threats of being arrested, as were many other civilians refused permission to exit town.  Governor Louis Mouttet and his wife stayed in the city. By the evening, the mountain’s tremors seemed to calm down again.
On 8 May 1902, a volcanic eruption destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre , about 6.4 kilometres (4.0 mi) south of the summit.
In the morning, people were observing the fireworks the mountain was displaying. The night shift telegraph operator was sending the reports of the volcano’s activity to the operator at Fort-de-France , claiming no significant new developments; his last transmission at 07:52 was “Allez”, handing over the line to the remote operator.  In the next second, the telegraph line went dead. A cable repair ship had the city in direct view; the upper mountainside ripped open and a dense black cloud shot out horizontally.  A second black cloud rolled upwards, forming a gigantic mushroom cloud and darkening the sky in a 50-mile (80 km) radius. The initial speed of both clouds was later calculated to be over 670 kilometres (420 mi) per hour.
The horizontal pyroclastic surge hugged the ground and sped down towards the city of Saint-Pierre, appearing black and heavy, glowing hot from the inside. It consisted of superheated steam and volcanic gases and dust, with temperatures exceeding 1,075 °C (1,967 °F). In under a minute it reached and covered the entire city, instantly igniting everything combustable with which it came in contact.
Many victims were in casual attitudes, their features calm and reposeful, indicating that death had overtaken them without warning and without pain; others were contorted in anguish. The clothing had been torn from nearly all the victims struck down outdoors. Some houses were almost pulverized; it was impossible even for persons familiar with the city to identify the foundations of the city landmarks.
The city burned for days. Sanitation parties penetrated the calcined ruins bit by bit, to dispose of the dead by burning; burial was out of the question. The stench was sickening. Thousands of victims lay under a shroud of ashes, heaped in windrows several feet deep, caked by the rains; many of these bodies were not retrieved for weeks, and few were identifiable.
The United States quickly offered help to Martinique authorities. On 12 May, US president Theodore Roosevelt instructed the Secretaries of War , Navy , and Treasury to start relief measures at once.  U.S. cruiser Cincinnati , lying at Santo Domingo , and the Navy tug Potomac at San Juan , Puerto Rico , were ordered to proceed to the disaster area as soon as possible. President Roosevelt asked Congress for an immediate appropriation of $500,000 for emergency assistance to the victims of the calamity. The President said: “One of the greatest calamities in history has befallen our neighboring island of Martinique … The city of St. Pierre has ceased to exist … The government of France … informs us that Fort-de-France and the entire island of Martinique are still threatened. They therefore request that, for the purpose of rescuing the people who are in such deadly peril and threatened with starvation, the government of the United States may send as soon as possible the means of transporting them from the stricken island.” The US Congress voted for $200,000 of immediate assistance and set hearings to determine what larger sum might be needed when the full nature of the disaster could be learned. In an appeal for public funds the President empowered postmasters to receive donations for relief of the victims; a national committee of prominent citizens took charge of chartering supply ships.
Canada , the UK , Germany , France , Italy , Denmark , Japan , Russia and the Vatican also offered help.
Beginning in October 1902, a dramatic volcanic spine grew from the crater floor in the Étang Sec crater, reaching a maximum width of about 100 to 150 m (300 to 500 ft) and a height of about 300 m (1,000 ft). Called the “Needle of Pelée” or “Pelée’s Tower”, this extraordinary volcanic feature rose up to 15 m (50 ft) a day, and became twice the height of the Washington Monument and more or less the same volume as the Great Pyramid of Egypt . It became unstable and collapsed into a pile of rubble in March 1903,  after 5 months of growth.
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau (Gallimard, 1992. Trans. Rose-Myriam Réjouis and Val Vinokurov, Vintage International, 1998). In this novel that retraces several generations of Martinique’s history, Esternome, the protagonist of the novel’s first part, witnesses firsthand the destruction caused by the volcano. Marie-Sophie Laborieux, Esternome’s daughter and the novel’s narrator, recounts her father’s experiences and also discusses the traces of this event she has seen herself, including burn scars on her father’s body and ossuaries in the ruins of Saint-Pierre. The eruption and its aftermath are discussed in the section “Amour grillée” (“Barbecued Love”).
Martinique Island by Rex Bestle. Based on the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelee, that erupted on May 8, 1902 killing 30,000 people & destroyed the town of St. Pierre.
^ “La Montagne Pelée” . Observatoire volcanologique et sismologique de la Martinique (in French). Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
^ “Pelee” . Global Volcanism Program . Smithsonian Institution . 15 February 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
^ Scarth, Alwyn (2002). La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Eruption of the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-19-521839-6 .
^ a b c d e “Mount Pelee” . Mount-pelee.com.
^ Wright, Pierson (1992). USGS Circular 1073. USGS . p. 39.
^ Tilling (1985). Volcanoes. USGS . pp. 16–17.
^ “USGS document of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee” . USGS . Archived from the original on 4 September 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
^ Tilling (1985). Volcanoes. USGS .
^ Wright,Pierson (1992). Living With Volcanoes: USGS Circular 1073. USGS .
^ Heilprin, Angelo (1903). Mont Pelee And The Tragedy Of Martinique . Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Retrieved 2009-08-15.
^ a b c d e f “The eruption of Mount Pelee” . SDSU .
^ Staff. “Mt. Pelee” . Windows to the universe.
^ “Government Relief Work: How the War and Navy Departments Have Divided it—Merchant Vessels May Be Chartered”. The New York Times. May 14, 1902.
^ a b c d Scarth, Alwyn (2002). La Catastrophe. Oxford. pp. 212–218.
^ a b Notes, Nature No.1714 Vol.66. 1902.
^ “Pelee: Eruptive History” . Global Volcanism Program . Smithsonian Institution .
^ Frost, Darrel R. (2014). “Allobates chalcopis (Kaiser, Coloma, and Gray, 1994)” . Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
^ Fouquet, A.; Pineau, K. V.; Rodrigues, M. T.; Mailles, J.; Schneider, J. B.; Ernst, R.; Dewynter, M. L. (2013). “Endemic or exotic: The phylogenetic position of the Martinique Volcano Frog Allobates chalcopis (Anura: Dendrobatidae) sheds light on its origin and challenges current conservation strategies”. Systematics and Biodiversity. 11: 87–101. doi : 10.1080/14772000.2013.764944 .
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mount Pelée .
The eruption of Pelée : a summary and discussion of the phenomena and their sequels , Angelo Heilprin, Linpincott, 1908.
“The Destruction in Martinique” . The World’s Work: A History of Our Time . II: 2267–2268d. June 1902. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
LATELY THOMAS (August 1961). “PRELUDE to DOOMSDAY” . American Heritage Magazine. 12 (5). Archived from the original on 2006-07-10.
This page was last edited on 1 December 2018, at 02:41 (UTC).
Beneath its calm exterior, it remains an active volcano, as evidenced by the hot water springs located on its western face. But rest assured! The last eruption took place in 1929, and underground activity is continuously monitored by the Morne des Cadets observatory, which houses one of the largest seismographs in the world.
This region gained its place in history quite dramatically on the morning of May 8, 1902, when the eruption of Mount Pelée, one of the most lethal natural disasters of the 20th century, killed the 30,000 inhabitants of Saint-Pierre in a matter of only minutes.
Today, the Franck Perret museum in Saint-Pierre, the regional volcano center in Morne-Rouge or the geosciences discovery center, set up in an exceptional paraseismic building, will tell you the complete history of Mt. Pelée's eruptions.
There are several paths allowing exploration of the volcanic peaks that unleashed the eruptions of 1902 and 1929. Hikers can tackle the summit from the face, which overhangs the Caribbean Ocean. This route opens onto exceptional views of Saint-Pierre and the coast. The north slope offers a great variety of landscapes, ranging from banana plantations and tropical forests to vast, wind-swept spaces. The route most favored by hikers, past the Aileron and the plateau des Palmistes, begins in the parking area located on the eastern face of the mountain.
Mount Pelée, French Montagne Pelée, active volcanic mountain on the Caribbean island of Martinique . Situated 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Fort-de-France , it reaches an elevation of 4,583 feet (1,397 metres). Pelée, whose name is a French term meaning “Bald,” consists of layers of volcanic ash and lavas. Its gently sloping cone is scored with ravines and supports luxuriant forests. Minor eruptions occurred in 1792 and 1851, but on May 8, 1902, it violently destroyed the port of Saint-Pierre, killing approximately 30,000 people, 15 percent of the island’s population. So dramatic was this event that the name of the mountain has been adopted (as in the term pelean) to describe that particular kind of eruption of ash, gas, and deadly nuée ardente (“fiery cloud”). A minor eruption occurred in 1929.
Mt. Pelee, a stratovolcano made mostly of pyroclastic rocks, is on the north end of the island of Martinique. Martinique is part of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc . The arc is formed by the subduction of the North American Plate under the Caribbean Plate. Space Shuttle photo of Martinique with Mt. Pelee on the north (left) end of the island.
Mt. Pelee is famous for the May 8, 1902 eruption which killed 29,000 people and destroyed the city of St. Pierre. This is the largest number of casualities for a volcanic eruption this century. Photograph of Mt. Pelee by Heilprin, May 26, 1902.
The destruction was caused by a nuee ardente , a type of pyroclastic flow that consists of hot incandescent solid particles. Photograph of a pyroclastic flow by Heilprin, 1902.
Photograph of the remains of St. Pierre by Heilprin, 1902.
Fisher, R.V., and Heiken, G., 1982, Mt. Pelee, Martinique; May 8 and 20, 1902, pyroclastic flows and surges: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v. 13, p. 339-371.
Fisher, R.V., Smith, A.L., and Roobol, M.J., 1980, Destruction of St. Pierre, Martinique by ash -cloud surges, May 8 and 20, 1902: Geology, v. 8, p. 472-476.
Heilprin, A., 1908, The eruption of Pelee: Philadelphia Geographic Society, 72 p.
Hirn, A., Girardin, N., Viode, J.-P., and Eschenbrenner, S., 1987, Shallow seismicity at Montagne Pelee volcano, Martinique, Lesser Antilles: Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 49, p. 723-728.
Lacroix, A., 1904, La Montagne Pelee et ses eruptions: Paris, Masson et Cie, 622 p.
Perret, F.A., 1937, The eruption of Mt. Pelee, 1929-1932: Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication, v. 458, 126 p.
Robson, G.R., and Tomlin, J.F., 1966, Catalogue of the active volcanoes of the world, including Solfatara fields; Part 20, West Indies: Rome, International Association of Volcanology, 56 p.
Smith, A.L., and Roobol, M.J., 1990, Mt. Pelee, Martinique; A study of an active island-arc volcano: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 175, 105 p.
Westercamp, D., and Traineau, H., 1983, The past 5,000 years of volcanic activity at M. Pelee, Martinique (F.W.I.); Implications for assessment of volcanic hazards: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v. 17, p.159-185.

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