26/03/2023
St Kitts. Mount Liamuiga is a 3,792-foot (1,156 m) stratovolcano which forms the western part of the island of Saint Kitts. The peak is the highest point on the island of Saint Kitts, in the federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and in the entire British Leeward Islands, as well as one of the tallest peaks in the eastern Caribbean archipelago. The peak is topped by a 0.6-mile (1 km) wide summit crater, which contained a shallow crater lake until 1959. As of 2006, the crater lake had re-formed. The last verified eruptions from the volcano were about 1,800 years ago, while reports of possible eruptions in 1692 and 1843 are considered uncertain.
Mount Liamuiga was formerly named Mount Misery. The renaming took place on the date of St. Kitts' independence, September 19, 1983. However, many older citizens still refer to it as Mount Misery. The name Liamuiga is derived from the Kalinago name for the entire island of St. Kitts, which means, "fertile land."
The mountainsides are covered in farmland and small villages up to the 1,500-foot (460 m) height, after which lush tropical rainforests drape the slopes until cloud forest takes over at 3,000 ft (900 m). Many tours and guided hikes are organized to the peak's summit and surrounding rainforests, usually starting from Belmont Estate in the village of St. Paul's. From the summit, the views are outstanding, including the entire island and the beautiful Caribbean Sea, as well as the neighbouring islands of Saba, Sint Eustatius, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Antigua, and Nevis.
MT. LIAMUIGA
17.37°N, 62.81°W
Elevation – 1155m
Last eruption – 1843 (unsubstantiated report)
Mt. Liamuiga rises to a height of 1155 m (3792 ft) and has a summit crater ~900 m wide and 244 m deep. The summit of Mt. Liamuiga exposes remnant lava flows and/or domes but the most common deposits identified on the lower flanks of Mt. Liamuiga are pyroclastic deposits. Cliff exposures along the coastline reveal 5-30 m thick successions of pyroclastic deposits (fall, flow and surge deposits), debris avalanche deposits and lahar deposits. Lava domes are prominent on the flanks of the volcano at Brimstone Hill, Sandy Point Hill and Farm Flat. There are also apparently two small craters located on Bourke’s Estate (Baker, 1965) although these could not be located during this study and their origin is unknown. Age dates on deposits interpreted to have been erupted from Mt. Liamuiga range from 1620 to > 41,000 yrs BP . These are the youngest known deposits on the island. The lava domes on the flanks of the volcano have not yet been dated and it is not known what the relative ages of these features are with respect to the dated pyroclastic deposits from Mt. Liamuiga.
Mt. Liamuiga principally formed by effusive lava-dome forming eruptions. Periodically the lava dome collapsed producing pyroclastic flows, surges and airfall. During and after periods of heavy rainfall it is likely that lahars or mudflows were also common. A final phase of explosive magmatic activity is interpreted to have formed the steep-walled, deep crater that is present at the summit of Mt. Liamuiga and to have produced the thick succession of airfall deposits that blanket the NW part of the island.
Fumaroles are present within the crater of Mt. Liamuiga as well asand on the flanks of the volcano along the SW base of Brimstone Hill and along the coast below Brimstone Hill. Volcanic earthquakes have also been associated with Mt. Liamuiga.
HISTORIC ERUPTIONS
There are two unsubstantiated reports of historic eruptions of Mt. Liamuiga in 1692 and 1843. The first report was by a Franciscan friar (Sloane 1694) who describes the island as being troubled by earthquakes and mentions an eruption “of a Great Mountain of Combustable Matter”. The second report comes from Capadose (1845) who describes a white spiral cloud of smoke and bubbling sulphurous springs from the crater of Mt. Liamuiga. There are no other historical reports to support the occurrence of either eruption and both of these alleged eruptions occurred immediately after major earthquakes. It is possible that the effects of the earthquakes were confused with genuine eruptions or that the earthquakes could have triggered minor eruptions.
Baker (1985) references S. Skerrit (pers. comm.) as describing a Carib legend about Brimstone Hill suggesting that the hill grew out of the lower slopes of Mt. Liamuiga. This suggests that the pre-Columbian Indians possibly witnessed the growth of Brimstone Hill.