Dr. Thomas Christopher, Volcanologist who is currently monitoring the activity at La Soufriere, while speaking on radio earlier this week, discussed how scientists know when an eruption is transitioning from effusive to explosive.
“Basically the idea is; if a volcano is going to start exploding, it should give you signs and we react to these signs. We can’t say beforehand when these signs are going to show up, but when we see them, then we respond to them and we send the alert out.
What I must say is the timing is definitely nothing we can say much about as well, because, as I was mentioning to somebody a few days ago, when you get a signal that raises alarm it doesn’t come with a clock, so you have no idea how long it’s going to take before an explosion happens. It could be days, it could be hours. But you respond to the signals as soon as you see them.” Dr. Christopher said.
