Inside the Active Volcano On Montserrat

Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of researchers has begun collecting imaging data on the Soufriere Hills Volcano in Montserrat, which has been erupting regularly since 1995. They're using the equivalent of a CAT scan to understand its internal structure and how and when it erupts. The experiment is dubbed SEA-CALIPSO and 'will use air guns and a string of sensors off the back of a research ship combined with sensors on land to try to image the magma chamber.' Early results are surprising. Quoting one of the leading scientists: 'The interesting thing is that much more magma is erupting than appears represented by the subsiding bowl. ... The magma volume in Montserrat eruptions is much larger than anyone would estimate from the surface deformation, because of the elastic storage of magma in what is effectively a huge magma sponge.'"

Re:No, that was Martinique

[gomiam]

And he wasn't the only survivor, just the publicized one.

misleading title and analogy

[i*i+1]

The use of the CAT scan analogy is rather poor for several reasons. This study uses a typical ground and sea based seismic survey. There is a new move in the earth sciences to actually use portable MRIs (like this one [magritek.com] [magritek - terranova]) to obtain images of the earth, so when I initially skimmed the article, I saw the CAT scan reference so many times that I thought they might be trying something similar.
While seismology and cat scans share the basic purpose of remotely sensing the insides of an object and cat scans would be familiar to many readers, the analogy should have only been used once, in the body of the article. NOT in the title. A "CAT scan" DID NOT reveal "inner workings of volcano island." A seismic survey did.