Lopevi has erupted at least 22 times since 1863, most recently in 1982..

Once inhabited, the villagers of Lopevi Island have since left their island and moved to nearby Paama Island (in the background of this photo) or Epi Island, just a few kilometers to the west.

Although not particularly large, Lopevi is an awesome looking stratovolcano (strato meaning layers built upon from successive eruptions), rising directly out of the ocean to 1,447m (4,747ft). From the ocean, it looks like a black monolith, an archetype for a doomsday movie.

Three months after the 1982 eruption this author sailed passed Lopevi. Only a handful of solitary trees escaped the lava and ash flow. Like insignificant islands of green in a world of barren grey and black, it was miraculous they had survived the heat. Lopevi loomed black and evil and defiant of any attempt to scale its' seemingly vertical slopes.

Eight years later the lower slopes were already resplendent in verdant tropical growth. Majestic tree ferns were as high as twenty year old coconut trees. Jungle almost fell over itself into the surrounding ocean. The top of the island was still capped by a misshapen craggy vent, barren of any life.

Seventeen years later, little has changed for Lopevi constantly bellows out sulfurous ash. The extreme and barren topography on the upper slopes means that every rainfall generates massive erosion, constantly changing the face of the island.

Because there are no earthquakes 50 and 200 kilometers beneath the surface of the earth, volcanologists have surmised that the subducted Australian plate over which the Pacific Plate is rising, has fractured and broken into two pieces. Compare this to the cross sectional diagram of Tanna volcano.

Next: Kuwai Island Volcanoes