192 by P. C. Bandopadhyay1 , Biswajit Ghosh2 and Mara Limonta3 A reappraisal of the eruptive history and recent (1991-2009) volcanic eruptions of the Barren Island, Andaman Sea 1 Department of Geology, University of Calcutta. Formerly with the Geological Survey of India, 40, Bajeshibpur Road, Howrah - 711 102, West Bengal, India. E-mail:
[email protected] 2 Department of Geology, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata - 700019. E-mail:
[email protected] 3 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Università di Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano, Italy. E-mail:
[email protected] The Barren Island volcano in the Western Sunda Arc Introduction has displayed explosive Strombolian eruptions for more The active volcanic centre of Barren Island (12°15' N and 93°51' than two decades. This recent explosive event, together E) in the Andaman Sea, herein referred to as Barren volcano, is located with the historic and prehistoric volcanic landforms, 135 km northeast of Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India (Fig. 1). present reliable information about explosive Strombolian Narcondam, a dormant volcano lies 140 km north of the Barren Island. eruptions and the volcanological evolution of the Both of them lie on the chain of active volcanoes of Java and Sumatra and extinct volcanoes of Myanmar, known as Neogene inner arc Barren Island volcano. This study is a re-evaluation of volcanic belt of Southeast Asia (Fig. 1). It is believed that the Barren existing knowledge and incorporates new information volcano erupted first in prehistoric time (late Pleistocene; Shankar et and interpretations of the recent and past volcanic al., 2001).