RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Ge­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety is now mon­i­tor­ing the Dig­i­ty Vil­lage mud vol­cano in Bar­rack­pore for pos­si­ble erup­tions, fol­low­ing Tues­day’s erup­tion of the Dev­il’s Wood­yard vol­cano in Hin­dus­tan, New Grant.

Ge­ol­o­gists Ste­fon Har­ryper­sad, Varen­dra Ram­baran, and Xavier Moo­nan vis­it­ed the vol­ca­noes yes­ter­day and took sam­ples of the vol­canic dirt which spewed.

In an in­ter­view, Har­ryper­sad said both vol­ca­noes were ge­o­log­i­cal­ly re­lat­ed.

“It is along the same an­ti­cline called the Pe­nal/Bar­rack­pore an­ti­cline. (An an­ti­cline is a ridge or fold of strat­i­fied rock in which the stra­ta slope down­wards from the crest.)

Har­ryper­sad added, “There is a chance that both vol­ca­noes may be linked so we will be mon­i­tor­ing that one to see if there are any chances of erup­tions oc­cur­ring in that area. That site is not near any vil­lages but it is a pic­nic site and we will then ad­vise if they need to have ar­eas cor­doned off or not.”

The ge­ol­o­gist not­ed that the Dev­il’s Wood­yard vol­cano has re­mained ac­tive for many years.

“These vol­ca­noes are al­ways erupt­ing. They tend to be ef­fu­sive so if you ever vis­it the site you will see bub­bles and gas be­ing ex­pelled. Some­times the gas­es get trapped in the reser­voirs up to 5,000 feet and over a pe­ri­od of time when those gas­es are forced to the sur­face you have these erup­tions,” Har­ryper­sad said.

The team col­lect­ed sam­ples and used a drone to quan­ti­fy the amount of mud which was ex­pelled from the vol­canic cone.

Moo­nan said he did not think the vol­cano at New Grant would erupt again.

Say­ing the two erup­tions were con­sis­tent with what oc­curred in 1995, Moo­nan said a lot of re­search had been done on the vol­ca­noes by Petrotrin ge­ol­o­gist Cur­tis Archie.

He not­ed that the ex­panse of sul­phuric dirt is cur­rent­ly dan­ger­ous to climb as it was very soft, but not­ed that once the mud hard­ens maybe by April, on­look­ers can get clos­er to the vol­canic cone.

Urg­ing the pub­lic to stay away from the area un­til the var­i­ous State agen­cies com­plet­ed its work, Moo­nan said, so far, the vol­cano ap­pears dor­mant.

Coun­cil­lor for the dis­trict Michelle Ben­jamin said the area con­tin­ued to be bar­ri­cad­ed. She said she ex­pect­ed an in­flux of lo­cal tourists to flock to the site.

Ben­jamin said the park will re­main free to the pub­lic. In its lat­est bul­letin, the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness said it con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the vol­cano say­ing the mul­ti­ple erup­tions on Tues­day re­sult­ed in mud spew­ing out ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 me­tres in width and six me­tres in height.

The ODPM said the Hin­dus­tan Road in New Grant will re­main closed to ve­hic­u­lar and pedes­tri­an traf­fic ex­cept to peo­ple who re­side in the area.

Any­one with ques­tions or con­cerns can call 511 or vis­it the ODPM’s www.odpm.gov.tt for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

On Tues­day, 40 peo­ple had to be evac­u­at­ed af­ter the vol­cano erupt­ed. There were no re­port­ed in­juries.