My OperaTambora Volcano in Indonesia – Pompeii of the East?
Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:46:10 PM
Diggings on the Sumawa Island disclose a lost Indonesian civilisation
Mount Tambora's eruption on 10 April 1815, buried the inhabitants of Sumbawa Island under searing ash, gas and rock and is blamed for around 90,000 deaths mostly due to starvation (117,000 casualties according to Haraldur Sigurdsson, a University of Rhode Island professor who has studied Tambora since 1986). The eruption was at least four times more powerful than Mount Krakatoa's in 1883. It was the largest eruption in historic time. About 150 cubic kilometers of ash were erupted (about 150 times more than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens). On a geologic scale a volcano in the Yellowstone area is believed to have exploded with thousands of km3 of crushed rocks and ashes ca. 2 million years ago. On the eruption magnitude scale called the Volcanic Explosivity Index or VEI Mount St. Helens was VEI 5, Krakatau VEI 6, Tambora VEI 7, and Yellowstone VEI 8. Tambora's blast also sent sulfur dioxide 43 km into the air, creating a chemical chain reaction in the atmosphere that caused a year of global cooling that made 1816 "the year without a summer".
Tambora and Krakatau (often called Krakatoa in English) are situated in a volcanic arc. A volcanic (or magmatic arc) is a generally curved linear belt of volcanoes above a subduction zone, and the volcanic and plutonic rocks formed there. The (volcanoes on the) Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumawa, Komodo, Flores etc. form such a volcanic arc. Indonesia has some 155 active volcanoes. Most of Indonesia's volcanoes are part of this volcanic arc called the Sunda arc, a 3,000 km long line of volcanoes extending from northern Sumatra to the Banda Sea. Most of these volcanoes are the result of subduction of the Australia Plate beneath the Eurasia Plate.
- Yahoo News at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060228/ap_on_sc/lost_civilization
- BBC News at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4748902.stm
- Reuters at http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=11356648&src=rss/scienceNews
Mount Tambora's eruption on 10 April 1815, buried the inhabitants of Sumbawa Island under searing ash, gas and rock and is blamed for around 90,000 deaths mostly due to starvation (117,000 casualties according to Haraldur Sigurdsson, a University of Rhode Island professor who has studied Tambora since 1986). The eruption was at least four times more powerful than Mount Krakatoa's in 1883. It was the largest eruption in historic time. About 150 cubic kilometers of ash were erupted (about 150 times more than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens). On a geologic scale a volcano in the Yellowstone area is believed to have exploded with thousands of km3 of crushed rocks and ashes ca. 2 million years ago. On the eruption magnitude scale called the Volcanic Explosivity Index or VEI Mount St. Helens was VEI 5, Krakatau VEI 6, Tambora VEI 7, and Yellowstone VEI 8. Tambora's blast also sent sulfur dioxide 43 km into the air, creating a chemical chain reaction in the atmosphere that caused a year of global cooling that made 1816 "the year without a summer".
Tambora and Krakatau (often called Krakatoa in English) are situated in a volcanic arc. A volcanic (or magmatic arc) is a generally curved linear belt of volcanoes above a subduction zone, and the volcanic and plutonic rocks formed there. The (volcanoes on the) Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumawa, Komodo, Flores etc. form such a volcanic arc. Indonesia has some 155 active volcanoes. Most of Indonesia's volcanoes are part of this volcanic arc called the Sunda arc, a 3,000 km long line of volcanoes extending from northern Sumatra to the Banda Sea. Most of these volcanoes are the result of subduction of the Australia Plate beneath the Eurasia Plate.
You must be 
Leif Rømckeleirom # Wednesday, March 1, 2006 5:14:22 AM
Cheers,
Leirom
Ole Nielsennielsol # Wednesday, March 1, 2006 3:55:31 PM
Cheers to you too.
Ole