File:Andesitic ash (February 2006 ash eruption from Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc, eastern Caribbean Sea).jpg

English: Soufrière Hills Volcano andesite ash (field of view ~5.1 cm across) - loose, very fine-grained ash from a February 2006 eruption of the Soufrière Hills Volcano. It was collected from the top of St. Georges Hill, just west-northwest of the volcano (see satellite photos above).

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A significant series of volcanic eruptions decimated the southern half of Montserrat during the 1990s. Montserrat is an island in the northern Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc (eastern Caribbean Sea). The islands of the Lesser Antilles have a volcanic origin, the result of the North American Plate subducting westward & downward beneath the Caribbean Plate.

The Soufrière Hills Volcano occupies much of the southern half of Montserrat. It is a 31,000+ year old, andesitic, subduction zone stratovolcano. Its current phase of activity began in 1995 and 1996, prompting the evacuation of most of the island’s southern half. A significant ash eruption in summer 1997 destroyed the capital city of Plymouth along the southwestern shore of the island. The eruption was apparently triggered by the injection of basaltic magma into one of the volcano's two magma chambers. Soufrière Hills has been erupting intermittently to the present day (including activity in the 2010s), and the southern part of Montserrat has been off-limits to residents. Many former Plymouth residents have emigrated to Britain.