Piparo, Trinidad
February 22, 1997
- A mud volcano erupted in Piparo, Trinidad
on February 22. The mud from this eruption buried ten houses in the
village. No one was killed. The mud covered over one square mile (2.5
sq km) of the island, and left 31 families without a home. Evacuation
was planned for the residents of the surrounding area, as more eruptions
were predicted. Note: Original reports about this event said that it
was an actual volcanic eruption with lava. This was not believable,
however, since there are no such volcanoes on Trinidad.
-
- Harold Mahabir sent the following information about this non-eruption.
- Under your "What's Erupting Now"
section of Volcanoes of the World, you refer to the February 22, 1997
eruption of the Piparo Mud Volcano in Trinidad in the West Indies. Your
note on this "eruption" quite correctly points out that you
viewed with skepticism the early reports of lava eruptions from this
volcano. In fact, this and other mud volcanoes in Trinidad are not volcanoes
in the true sense. The eruptions are the result of the eruption from
accumulated pockets within the earth of natural gas of which there are
tremedous quantities in Trinidad.
-
- Crude Oil (Petroleum) and Natural Gas
production are the by far the biggest industries in Trinidad. The village
of Piparo appears to have been built in a valley which was really the
eroded crater of an older eruption of a natural gas mud volcano. The
February 22 eruption filled this valley and covered 21 homes as well
as cars, some livestock, trees etc. The ejecta consisted of gravel up
to one centimetre in diameter in a cement-like clay which hardened quite
considerably after a few days. The villagers were aware of earth rumblings
for some days before the eruption and most had vacated the area before
the final eruption. One man died a few days after the eruption when
he suffered a heart attack while helping some residents retrieve some
of their lost belongings.
-
- There was no combustion of the natural
gas during the eruption. The gas may have been well diluted with water
in the form of a mist during the eruption. There have been several instances
of natural gas pockets forming just under the sea-floor off the south
and west coasts of Trinidad which eventually resluted in islands of
mud appearing off the coast. These soon disappear when the gas bubble
bursts.
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