ACT ONE
Dormant
Steam from a fumarole on the north flank. The last eruption put 2.1 km of ash over four villages and nobody was hurt, which surprises people every time.
A volcano is a conversation between pressure and patience. Every day the magma chamber makes a little more gas; every day the rock above it gets a little heavier. One day the conversation ends in an afternoon.
Steam from a fumarole on the north flank. The last eruption put 2.1 km of ash over four villages and nobody was hurt, which surprises people every time.
A column rises eleven kilometres in four hours, and the wind takes it east. The first pyroclastic flow arrives at 03:40 and finishes the job.
The summit falls in on itself. A caldera 1.4 km across forms in ninety seconds, and the mountain is now 400 metres shorter than the map says.
Before 1974. 3,410 m now, if the last collapse is confirmed.
52 days of ash production, then nothing for half a century.
Silica-rich, viscous, and therefore explosive rather than effusive.
The Cocos plate subducts beneath the Caribbean at roughly 8 cm a year.