Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

is a volcanically active country, containing numerous major volcanoes. It has the most volcanoes of any country in the world, with 76 volcanoes that have erupted at least 1,171 times in total within historical times. The Smithsonian Institution has 141 Indonesian entries in its volcano database. Indonesia has around 130 active volcanoes that are part of the

Pacific Ring of Fire The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many Types of volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruptions and ...

, and it has suffered the highest numbers of eruptions resulting in fatalities, damage to arable land,

debris flow Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

s, lava domes, and

pyroclastic flow A pyroclastic flow (also known as a pyroclastic density current or a pyroclastic cloud) is a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter (collectively known as tephra) that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of bu ...

s. Indonesia's most active volcanoes are

Kelut The Kelud ( jv, ꦏꦼꦭꦸꦢ꧀, Kelud, sometimes spelled as ''Klut'', ''Cloot'', ''Kloet'', ''Kloete'', ''Keloed'' or ''Kelut'') is an active stratovolcano located in Kediri, East Java, Indonesia. Like many Indonesian volcanoes and others on ...

and

Mount Merapi Mount Merapi, ''Gunung Merapi'' (literally Fire Mountain in Indonesian and Javanese), is an active stratovolcano located on the border between the province of Central Java and the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is the most active ...

on the island of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. The majority of Indonesia's volcano are located on a 3,000 km long chain called the

Sunda Arc The Sunda Arc is a volcanic arc that produced the volcanoes that form the topographic spine of the islands of Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara, and Java, the Sunda Strait and the Lesser Sunda Islands. The Sunda Arc begins at Sumatra and ends at Flores, ...

. Here, the subduction of the Indian Ocean crust underneath the Asian Plate produced most of these volcanoes.

History

Volcanic eruptions

The most severe eruptions on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

in historical times took place in Indonesia. In 1815, the giant eruption of

Mount Tambora Mount Tambora, or Tomboro, is an active stratovolcano in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Located on Sumbawa in the Lesser Sunda Islands, it was formed by the active subduction zones beneath it. Before 1815, its elevation reached more than ...

, a stratovolcano, became the largest known eruption in the world during historical times, and it had such a large effect on the climate that the following year, 1816, in Europe was known as the year without summer. 40 km³ of ash were produced as a result of the eruption combined with the collapse of the caldera. About 90,000 people were killed as a result of Mt. Tambora's 1815 eruption, about 10,000 directly from the eruption and about 80,000 from crop loss and famine. In 1883, the catastrophic eruption of

Krakatoa Krakatoa (), also transcribed (), is a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a volcanic island group (Krakatoa archipelago) comprising four islands. Tw ...

, a volcanic island in

Lampung Lampung (Lampung: ), officially the Province of Lampung ( id, Provinsi Lampung) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It has a short border with the province of Bengkulu to the northwest, and a ...

, which registered as a 6 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), and the

s that ensued killed about 36,000 people, and approximately two-thirds of the original island was destroyed as well. The 2010 the eruption of Mount Merapi, a stratovolcano, began in late October and continued into November. This eruption had a VEI of 4, and it also released a sulfur dioxide cloud between 12,000 and 15,000 m into the upper troposphere.

Preparation

In 1920, the

Volcanological Survey of Indonesia Volcanological Survey of Indonesia is the official Indonesian government agency under Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources which are responsible for investigating, recording, and warning about volcanoes within the Indonesian region of responsibi ...

was created in order to investigate, record, and warn people about volcanoes within the Indonesian region. This group has helped aid in the evacuation of people living near Indonesian volcanoes since it was formed. For example, during the 1982 eruption of

Galunggung Mount Galunggung (Indonesian: ''Gunung Galunggung'', formerly spelled ''Galoen-gong'') is an active stratovolcano in West Java, Indonesia, around southeast of the West Java provincial capital, Bandung (or around to the east of the West Java t ...

, which had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 4, 75,000 people were evacuated and 68 people died, and in 1988, 15,000 people were evacuated and there were no fatalities during the eruption of

Makian Makian (also Machian), known to local people as Mount Kie Besi, is a volcanic island, one of the Maluku Islands within the province of North Maluku in Indonesia. It lies near the southern end of a chain of volcanic islands off the western coast ...

References

* {{Indonesia-geo-stub

History

Volcanic eruptions

Preparation

See also

References