diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index fdb760c..23ca887 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 *~
 .*swp
 
+# Java heap dumps
+*.hprof
+
 # GUI metadata files
 .DS_Store
 Thumbs.db
diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 14cc563..99fdfc5 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -1727,6 +1727,7 @@
                     <propertyset refid="mda.properties"/>
                 </syspropertyset>
                 <jvmarg value="-enableassertions"/>
+                <jvmarg if:set="java.heap.dump" value="-XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError"/>
                 <arg value="--logConfig"/>
                 <arg value="${tools.dir}/mda-logging.xml"/>
                 <arg value="@{config}"/>