The Prisoner of Martinique

I don’t know how they found him, but find him they did.  I guess he was shouting for all it was worth, which is not exactly surprising.  It must have been enormously hard work digging ash away from the doors to get to him, and when they did, they found him alive although somewhat burned.

In spite of the threat of the supposedly sleeping monster

Four days before, Mt Pelée, a volcano on the island of Martinique had erupted.  There had been some minor eruptions previously although the townspeople of Saint Pierre had gone about their usual business in spite of the threat of the supposedly sleeping monster.  I guess it is a bit like those who live in San Francisco or Los Angeles – there is always the threat of an earthquake, but there is not much to be done about it so people went about their daily lives regardless.

At 07h52 on 8^th May 1902 Mt Pelée blew her top.  There must have been minor eruptions and associated earthquakes prior to that fateful day – but this day was the crack of doom!

These fiery hot ash flows descend in a glowing, superheated cloud

Most people think that it is the molten lava that does the damage, but it is actually a far more lethal phenomenon that kills, known to geologists and volcanologists by various names – ignimbrites, pyroclastic flows or nuée ardentes.  I will leave you to try and pronounce the latter French version.  These fiery hot ash flows descend from the mountain top in a glowing, superheated cloud which incinerates, smothers and kills anything in its path in seconds.  They can reach temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees C/1830 degrees F.

Mr Ludger Sylbaris had been arrested the night before for drunken brawling

And this is what happened on that fateful day on Martinique.  An incandescent cloud of ash descended on the beautiful Caribbean town of St Pierre, and had killed an estimated 30 000 people.  Everybody died except a gentleman who was living on the edge of the flow, a young girl who escaped in a boat, and Mr Ludger Sylbaris had been arrested the night before for drunken brawling.  He had been thrown into a magazine built to store ammunition, with its attendant thick walls, no windows and a very thick door.  When the volcano erupted, he was in the safest place in town.  He had to take his clothes off, which he soaked in his own urine. which he used to block the red-hot ash that was trying to get in through the gap in the door.  The hot air burned him, but when they found him four days later, he was still alive, albeit somewhat blistered.  He became a minor early 20^th Century celebrity as a result of his experiences.

Mr Ludger Sylbaris -the Survivor of St Pierre

A wonderful distillation and a history of big science

The South American Plate is being subducted below the Caribbean Plate, with Martinique being part of a larger volcanic island arc called the Lesser Antilles.  For more on plate tectonics and subduction zones please read our various blog posts or sign up for our plate tectonics course which is a wonderful distillation of the various components, and the history of how big science eventually bolted down the nuts and bolts of the theory.  In short, subducting plates melt below the adjacent plates, whether it is continental crust or oceanic crust.  This melting leads to the formation of magma chambers along the edge of the buoyant plate, which erupt as volcanoes, and in this example Mt Pelée.