Deep in the heart of the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion is the vil­lage of Dig­i­ty, a pic­turesque spot where two decades ago, the chug­ging sug­ar­cane lo­co­mo­tive lum­bered along the un­du­lat­ing hills and val­leys trans­port­ing sug­ar cane to the Usine Ste Madeliene sug­ar fac­to­ry.

The colo­nial bridge and the old train tracks have long gone but there is one as­pect of the vil­lage that has re­mained the same.

It is the Dig­i­ty mud vol­cano which juts out in­to the hori­zon amidst the agri­cul­tur­al es­tates of the Pic­ton Es­tate Road. Its clay is said to be over 11 mil­lion years old.

Un­like all the oth­er vol­ca­noes in the coun­try, the Dig­i­ty vol­cano has the sin­gle largest cone that is known in all of Trinidad. It mea­sures over 20 feet above the ground and is 63 feet above sea lev­el. It spews very lit­tle mud and is vis­i­ble from the road. In fact, ge­ol­o­gists be­lieve the mud ejec­tions were con­nect­ed to rain­fall as dur­ing the dry sea­son there are very lit­tle mud ex­pul­sions. Like oth­er mud vol­ca­noes, the clay is said to have ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties.

Named as a her­itage site in the Na­tion­al Trust, there have been at­tempts by the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to make this a thriv­ing tourist site. How­ev­er, this has failed mis­er­ably with peo­ple de­stroy­ing the pic­nic huts and camp­ing grounds on the out­skirts of the vol­cano.

Vil­lager Kar­ish­ma Jhu­lai said even though the area is serene, there is very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion avail­able on the vol­cano.

She said the vol­cano's mag­nif­i­cence should be proud­ly fea­tured as part of the Pe­nal/Debe her­itage.

"This is an area which is rich in the his­to­ry of our sug­ar­cane and oil for­tunes. We have the in­fra­struc­ture here that should be pre­served. The cross ties of the old rail­way lines as well as the con­crete struc­tures of the bridge, are still here. This should be made in­to a tourist site and the vol­cano could gen­er­ate in­come as part of com­mu­ni­ty tourism," Jhu­lai said.

Chair­man of the Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Allen Sam­my said he re­mem­bers a sto­ry of an oil rig which dis­ap­peared one night near to the Dig­i­ty mud vol­cano.

"I have of­ten tried to find the ex­act spot where it dis­ap­peared but we have nev­er been able to," he said.

In an ar­ti­cle writ­ten by the late his­to­ri­an, Louis B Homer ti­tled, "A brief his­to­ry of Pe­nal/ Debe", Homer doc­u­ment­ed the 1938 dis­ap­pear­ance of Well 306 Spec­tac­u­lar which was "sucked in­to the ground and nev­er re­cov­ered".

Homer said when oil drilling be­gan in 1921, some 171 wells were drilled in the Bar­rack­pore re­gion. Much of this old oil in­fra­struc­ture still stands in the vil­lage, along with ves­tiges of old weigh­ing scales and rail­ways used when sug­ar was king.

Sam­my said he too was dis­ap­point­ed that the peo­ple of T&T had no con­cern for the valu­able trea­sures of Dig­i­ty Vil­lage, in­clud­ing its mud vol­cano.

Say­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion does not have the ju­ris­dic­tion over the vol­cano, Sam­my said the lands are not vest­ed in the Cor­po­ra­tion. Even though the Cor­po­ra­tion has spent hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars over the years to up­grade the site, peo­ple who vis­it the vol­cano con­tin­ue to de­mol­ish its fix­tures.

"Mon­ey is al­ready tight and we have spent a lot to fix the roads, put up signs and erect pic­nic huts. We have al­so put in a toi­let fa­cil­i­ty but there is no wa­ter to fill the tank. We have erect­ed six pic­nic sheds but peo­ple have been rip­ping off the wood from the sheds to cook. They are mash­ing up the toi­lets," he said.

Sam­my said the PDRC has earned no in­come from this tourism ven­ture, un­like the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion which earns $60,000 per year from tourism ini­tia­tives at the Dev­il's Wood­yard mud vol­cano.

He said the PDRC want­ed to set up a sys­tem where the com­mu­ni­ty can have con­trol over the fa­cil­i­ty.

"We will pro­vide his­tor­i­cal in­for­ma­tion, a tourism hut and the com­mu­ni­ty can pro­vide meals and drinks. They will have to main­tain the fa­cil­i­ty, clean the toi­lets and beau­ti­fy the area," Sam­my said. He ex­plained that the vol­cano is bound­ed by a train line and a lit­tle bridge that the train used to go over. There is the old sto­ry about a dis­ap­pear­ing oil well which can be ex­plored. This vol­cano has tremen­dous scope for tourism and it should be mar­ket­ed as one of T&T's won­ders," Sam­my said.

Vol­canic clay is 11 mil­lion years old

Se­nior geo­sci­en­tist at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Xavier Moo­nan said the Dig­i­ty mud vol­cano achieves a cone height of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20ft and stands as the sole vent at this site.

"The Dig­i­ty Mud vol­cano oc­curs along the ax­is of the WSW-ENE trend­ing Pe­nal Bar­rack­pore an­ti­cline, at the junc­ture with an NW-SE trend­ing tear fault. The mud slur­ry com­pris­es pri­mar­i­ly Mid Mi­icene (11 mil­lion years old) Lengua deep­wa­ter clays," he said.

Moo­nan al­so called for the vol­cano to be mar­ket­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. He said T&T's mud vol­ca­noes were dis­tinc­tive and unique, adding that the Dig­i­ty vol­cano is even more unique be­cause of its con­i­cal shape.

Dur­ing the erup­tion of the Dev­il's Wood­yard vol­cano, Moo­nan and his team did re­search to find out whether the Dig­i­ty vol­cano was show­ing any signs of ac­tiv­i­ty. They found none.

Moo­nan said the Dig­i­ty Mud Vol­cano was one of two mud vol­ca­noes which oc­cur atop the Pe­nal Bar­rak­pore An­ti­cli­nal trend. The oth­er is vol­cano is Dev­il's Wood­yard.

"Dig­i­ty mud vol­cano has one dis­tinct tall cone, mak­ing it one of the tallest mud vol­ca­noes on the is­land. How­ev­er more re­cent­ly fields ad­ja­cent to the mud vol­cano show signs of ac­tiv­i­ty as well with small cones form­ing, lots of gas and mud bub­bling and traces of light oil es­cap­ing with the mud," Moo­nan said.

"The main cone has stayed qui­et for quite some time and one won­ders if the small­er cones in the ad­ja­cent field will per­sist from now on­wards as the main re­leas­es for the sub­sur­face pres­sures."

He said Dig­i­ty mud vol­cano oc­curs in the heart of the Pe­nal Bar­rack­pore oil­field.

"This is a field that has pro­duced just over 200 mil­lion bar­rels of oil from ap­prox 1,500 wells, pro­vid­ing a fair amount of sub­sur­face in­for­ma­tion to un­der­stand the na­ture and be­hav­iour of this mud vol­cano.

"The mud vol­cano oc­curs along an ac­tive north­west to south­east trend­ing tear fault which pro­vides a con­duit for pres­sur­ized flu­id in rocks as old as 11 mil­lion years old to es­cape to sur­face."

Moo­nan said in the 1970s an oil rig was drilling a well ad­ja­cent to the vol­cano. He said it was cus­tom­ary at that time for work­ers to be off du­ty on week­ends, how­ev­er, when they re­turned to work on Mon­day the rig had dis­ap­peared.

How to get to Dig­i­ty vol­cano?

One of the eas­i­est routes to get to the vol­cano is through the San Fer­nan­do/Siparia (SS) Erin Road. At Debe, you turn on­to Lal­be­har­ry Trace (the Po­lice Post is at the in­ter­sec­tion) and dri­ve for 1.8 kilo­me­tres. You then reach a four-way in­ter­sec­tion with a cell tow­er on the left and you turn right on to the road op­po­site the cell tow­er. You dri­ve for 2.8 kilo­me­tres and will reach Dig­i­ty vil­lage where the vol­cano is vis­i­ble from the road.