View of the defunct capital Plymouth as seen from the sea following dome collapse in January 2010
In 1493 Christopher Columbus named it after a mountain in northeastern Spain because he found the island to be as lush and green as the Catalonian province. It’s nicknamed the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean because its early Irish settlers found it reminiscent of their green coasts. But 500 years later most of the Lesser Antillean island of Montserrat has been anything but green. Its volcano became active again in 1995 and nearly two decades of periodic pyroclastic flows, lahars (mudflows with volcanic materials), as well as gas and ash venting have converted much of the island, especially the southern half, to a gray wasteland. The old capital of Plymouth, in fact, is covered under 40 feet of mud and ash. From the nearby town of Richmond Hill, which is about as close as you can get without being arrested (I’ve tried), you can see old sugar mills and three-story boulders that the volcano tossed all the way to Plymouth mixed together in a strange melange.