Soufrière Hills Soufrière Hills The Soufrière Hills volcano is an active, complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. Many volcanoes in the Caribbean are named Soufrière (French: "sulphur outlet"). These include La Soufrière or Soufrière Saint Vincent on the island of Saint Vincent and La Grande Soufrière on Guadeloupe. After a long period of dormancy, the Soufrière Hills volcano became active in 1995, and has continued to erupt ever since. Its eruptions have rendered more than half of Montserrat uninhabitable, destroying the capital city, Plymouth, and causing widespread evacuations: about two thirds of the
Volcano an extinct volcano from a dormant (inactive) one. Dormant volcanoes are those that have not erupted for thousands of years, but are likely to erupt again in the future. Volcanoes are often considered to be extinct if there are no written records of its activity. Nevertheless, volcanoes may remain dormant for a long period of time. For example, Yellowstone has a repose/recharge period of around 700,000 years, and Toba of around 380,000 years. Vesuvius was described by Roman writers as having been covered with gardens and vineyards before its eruption of 79 CE, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and