It’s difficult to monitor an underwater volcano like Kick-’em-Jenny and it’s also dangerous when that volcano is restless. This is why scientists use volcanic earthquakes to take the fire mountain’s “pulse” from a relatively safe distance.
Have you ever wondered how volcanologists do that? Here is a whole hour-plus 2013 webinar from IRIS Earthquake Science about it, nerdy but aimed at nonspecialists like us.
As we will see with this weekend’s Sunday Morning Volcano post, there are a lot of quiet but still active volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean. Fortunately, these sleeping trouble-makers are bedecked with seismometers and other monitoring equipment so that volcanologists can give the local residents as much advance warning as possible when the volcano starts to wake up.