Ships warned away from underwater volcano in Caribbean

Mar 15, 2018 by Triton Staff

Grenada’s National Disaster Management Agency (NaDMA) has issued a warning to seafarers of increased seismic activity at the Kick’em Jenny Volcano submerged off the coast of Grenada, according to the Seismic Research Center at the University of the West Indies in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

NaDMA has raised the alert level to orange, which means an eruption could take place within 24 hours. The government of Grenada has imposed a 3-mile (5km) vessel exclusion zone around the volcano.

The volcano lies 5 miles (8km) north of Grenada and about 5 miles west of Ronde Island in the Grenadines. It rises almost a mile (1.3km) above the seafloor on a steep slope of the Lesser Antilles ridge and is one of the most active volcanoes in the eastern Caribbean, according to news reports.

There was no indication that the increased seismic activity would generate a tsunami, according to reports. However, large underwater discharges of gas can pose a hazard to ship stability and reduce buoyancy, said professor Richard Robertson of the Seismic Research Center.

The Seismic Research Center in collaboration with NaDMA will monitor the activities of Kick em’ Jenny and issue updates as necessary. For more information, visit uwiseismic.com.

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