Mount Pelee's collapsed lava dome, 1903

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Mount Pelee's collapsed lava dome, 1903. Mount Pelee is famous for its May 1902 eruption that killed some 30,000 in the town of Saint Pierre, on the Caribbean island of Martinique. This photograph shows the remnants of the lava dome (known as the 'obelisk') that formed following the 1902 eruptions. The lava dome formed in October 1902 and grew in the form of a column to a height of over 300 meters before it collapsed in March 1903. This photograph, by the US geologist Angelo Heilprin (1853-1907), was published in volume 16 (1908) of the US magazine Popular Astronomy. Heilprin visited the island in 1902 and 1903.

Royal Astronomical Society / Science Source

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