Janssen, Rick on sun 11 apr 99
Hi All -- Came acoss the following newspaper article recently and thought
I'd post it since there has been some discussion about the subject on the
list.
From: Morning News, Erie, Pennsylvania, Friday, February 19,1999, page 3A.
Montserrat residents face lung disease risk from mineral in Caribbean
volcanic ash
WASHINGTON (AP) - A mineral in the ash spewing from a volcano on the
Caribbean island of Montserrat may put residents there at high risk of
developing silicosis, a serious lung disease,according to a new study.
British researchers analyzing the ash erupting from Montserrat's Soufriere
Hills volcano said it contains harmful levels of cristobalite, a silica
mineral that is small enough to lodge in the smallest passages of the lungs.
An accumulation of the mineral can cause thickening and scarring, leading to
silicosis, a disease that reduces the lungs' ability to supply oxygen to the
blood, the reseachers say in a study to be published Friday in the journal
Science.
Souffriere Hills volcano erupted in 1995, forcing evacuation of mos of the
11,000 residents on the 39-square-mile island. Many people, however, moved
to the northern part of Montserrat, an area relatively free of ash.
In the 3 1/2 years since the volcano came to life, there have been periods
of quiet between eruptions and many people returned to check on property
near Soufriere Hills. More than a dozen people who had returned to a danger
area were killed in 1997 when the volcano suddenly erupted.
The study in Science suggests that even those who remained in the northern
part of the island may suffer long-term health effects from the volcano's
ash flow because of the harmful levels of cristobalite.
Cristobalite froms inside the volcano dome, researchers found, and then
becomes concentrated in ash eruptions.
The ash falls in clumps and can be sent back into the air by human
activities, such as driving or sweeping. This increases the risk that
residents will inhale the small cristobalite particles, the study found.
"The period after the eruption might not some like the most dangerous,
especially because you can't see the ash suspended in the air, but it does
hang around for quite a long time," said Bristol University researcher
Stephen Sparks.
-30-
The report mentioned in the above article is in the February 19, 1999,
issue of SCIENCE magazine on page 1142.
Rick L Janssen
janssenr@pluto.dsu.edu
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