Flemings, Montserrat – May 7th, 2008 – Professor Vincent Courtillot, Director of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), will be visiting the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) today during a one-day trip to Montserrat. The main purpose of his visit is to familiarize himself with the MVO and the island’s governing bodies.
Professor Courtillot will be joined by Director of French Volcano & Seismological Observatories, Dr. Steve Taitt, as well as Dr. Richard Robertson (Head, Seismic Research Unit), Dr. Nicolas Fournier (Volcanologist, SRU) and Mr. Roderick Stewart (Ag. Director, MVO). In addition to visiting the exclusion zone, the team will be paying courtesy calls on Governor Waterworth, Chief Minister Lewis and the DMCA. There will also be a meeting of the SRU/IPGP management team.
With regard to the SRU/IPGP management of the MVO, Courtillot remarked that, “We are delighted to undertake this challenging task in collaboration with our SRU colleagues, with whom we have a longstanding and close working relationship. We are already serving the populations of Martinique and Guadeloupe through volcanic and seismic monitoring.”
Collectively, the staff of the SRU and the IPGP has over one hundred years of experience studying volcanoes in the West Indies and elsewhere. Both agencies were involved in managing the MVO during the first few years of the eruption which began in 1995.
