Monserrat - geological uncertanty

The first 200 words of this essay...

Monserrat

A long time ago in the southern Caribbean (latitude 16.72 north and longitude 62.18 west, for those of you with maps) an undersea volcano erupted from the ocean's floor. Spewing its lava (molten rock), the volcano built an undersea mountain that grew higher and higher, eventually growing above the surface of the sea.

This was the beginning of the island we now call "Montserrat". Eventually the volcano calmed down and life colonized this tropical paradise. Many years later the volcano became active again, this time slightly to the north of its older vent. These eruptions were very large and produced most of the rest of the island. The new volcanic mountain reached 1.4 kilometers into the sky! (That's over 3/4 of a mile high!) About 500 years ago this second series of eruptions stopped and the Montserrat volcano appeared to have calmed down.

A couple hundred years later Europeans and their African slaves colonized this tiny (13 x 8 km) tropical island. They called the high part on the south side of the island "Soufriére Hills" (sometimes called "North Soufriére Hills" to distinguish it from the older dead volcano next to it). For generations