According to news reports, the Soufriere Hills Volcano, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, erupted on May 20, 2006. The dome collapsed, sending a debris flow down the volcano’s flanks and a cloud of volcanic ash 16 kilometers (10 miles) into the sky. The Associated Press reported that airline flights were suspended as a result of the ash clouds.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard the Terra satellite took this picture of a volcanic ash plume emanating from the Soufriere Hills Volcano on May 20, 2006. The volcano is near the upper right corner of the image. In this picture, the volcanic ash plume blends into the clouds over the volcano, but the ash plume is partly beige, especially near its source at the volcano’s summit.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by the Goddard Earth Sciences DAAC.
