Weekend's Special: Mount Tambora, the Earth's Giant Hole in Sumbawa, Indonesia

Mount Tambora is one of the active mount in Indonesia which located in Peninsula of Sumbawa upstate and geographically resides in on course 080 15' Parallel South and 1180 00' Longitude East, regional of Sub-Province Administration of Bima and Dompu, and the entire of the top of itself administratively includes Sub-Province Region of Bima. Mount Tambora lays in earth breaking band, its wide cauldron includes as one of the biggest active crater in the world.

According to the history record, Mount Tambora had erupted several times, especially the bigbang explosion in 1815 caused a commotion in the whole world and 92.000 deaths or annihilated 3 empires residing in Sumbawa.

From biotic aspect, Mount Tambora has variously properties of biotic which needs the existence of effort. Based on the opinion above, the government according to commendation of Laws no. 5 year 1990 about nature variety through the Minister of forestry, plantation and agriculture realized the management of Tambora mount to management units based on the Laws no.41 year 1999 about forestry which is suitable with the function and specification destine in one management, the Management of Hall Natural Resources Conservation of west Nusa Tenggara. Three regional units of the management are Southern Mount Tambora Preservation, Southern Mount Tambora Game Reserve, and Southern Mount Tambora Hunting Park. Besides the three management conservation units, there are management units surronding the conservation areas of forest management covering a function of forest production managed by sub-province of Bima and Dompu.

Eruptions History

Tambora volcano is one of the active volcanos in Indonesia which caused a commotion because it’s explosion on 10 November 1815 and caused that counted about 92.000 people. According to other record, noted the explosion of tambora in the year of 1812, 1815, 1819, and among 1847-1913, eruption in 1913, at the base of caldera which is the result of eruption in 1815 formed a trapeze with crater pipe in the base of south-western caldera called Doro Api Toi which has diameter 100 m and 10 m height which become the center of activity.

Tambora volcano represents active mount type strato A with 2.851 m of height, and has a caldera which diameter is rather than 7 km and cauldron base size 3.500 x 4000 m, and also have 950 m of depth. In West side caldera there is a lake with 800 m diameter unfold from north to south, 200 m unfold from east direction till west, having 15 m of depth which lay in 1300 mdpl of height. In the south base of cauldron there is parasite trapeze which has 100 m of diameter, 10 m of height, called Doro Api Toi (small volcano).

The observation result (mining) reports that there are activities in the form of blowing fumaroles and solfatara, that form brimstone sublimation at part of cauldron wall and base. seismic data (earthquake) and visual data which noted from post observation of Tambora volcano in October 1999 until September 2000 did not show improvement, so that this volcano still stay in normal active condition.

As forested area Tambora has the biggest water area which becomes the life hope of human beings in this area and also for human communities which live around it. Tambora also has become a habitat of flora and fauna.

Lost Civilization Unearthed

The eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa in 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in human history, killed 117,000 people and extinguished the tiny kingdom of Tambora. After 20 years of research, a scientist from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography has located the first remnants of a Tamboran village under 10 feet of ash and has unearthed the first clues about its culture.

In a six-week archaeological dig in the summer of 2004, URI Professor Haraldur Sigurdsson and colleagues from the University of North Carolina and the Indonesian Directorate of Volcanology excavated a Tamboran home where they found the remains of two adults as well as bronze bowls, ceramic pots, iron tools and other artifacts. The design and decoration of the artifacts suggest that the Tamboran culture was linked to Vietnam and Cambodia, and its language was related to that of the Mon-Khmer group of languages that are now scattered across Southeast Asia.

“There’s potential that Tambora could be the Pompeii of the East, and it could be of great cultural interest,” said Sigurdsson, who believes the village includes a large wooden palace that he hopes to find on a future expedition. “All the people, their houses and culture are still encapsulated there as they were in 1815. It’s important that we keep that capsule intact and open it very carefully.” (Pompeii was similarly wiped out by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and a treasure trove of artifacts from the Roman culture were discovered encapsulated in the ash.)

During the eruption, Mount Tambora ejected up to 100 cubic kilometers of magma and pulverized rock, and it spewed ash and 400 million tons of sulfurous gases 44 kilometers into the atmosphere. The gases that lingered in the atmosphere caused a year of global cooling in 1816 that is now known as “the year without a summer” and which caused disease epidemics and worldwide food shortages due to crop failures. The growing season in New England declined by 100 days that year, which led to the start of a movement by farmers to abandon farming in the region and move west.

Sigurdsson made his first visit to Mount Tambora in 1986 with URI colleague Steven Carey to calculate the size of the eruption. They returned two years later to explore the volcano’s 1,250-meter-deep caldera or crater.

“It’s a remote island with very little access, so it has been little studied over the years,” Sigurdsson said. “My primary motivation was to study the effects the eruption had on society.”

A guide hired by the URI scientists during their second visit to the island told them about ancient objects the local people had found in the jungle 25 kilometers west of the caldera. When Sigurdsson returned to visit the site in 2004, he explored a gully that cut through a 10-foot thick deposit of volcanic pumice and ash where he soon found the first evidence of the village – pottery shards and carbonized lumber. Using radar to look deep into the ground, the scientist quickly found and unearthed a small house built on stilts that rest on foundation stones.

“Everything we found had been carbonized,” Sigurdsson said. “It had turned to charcoal from the heat of the magma.”

Based on the artifacts he found, particularly the many bronze objects, Sigurdsson believes that the Tamborans were “not poor people at all. They were actually quite well off.” Historical evidence supports that belief, as Tamborans had been famous in the East Indies for their honey, horses, sappan wood for producing red dye, and sandalwood used for incense and medications.

According to Sigurdsson, the village was located 5 kilometers inland, where the residents were safe from pirates that frequently captured coastal residents and forced them into slavery. The site had also been highly productive for growing crops.

Sigurdsson intends to return to Tambora in 2007 to find the palace and the rest of the village. He will conduct a detailed radar survey of the site using modern, non-destructive techniques to establish the extent of the town and identify target sites for future excavations.

A native of Iceland who now resides in Wakefield, R.I., Sigurdsson is best known for his studies of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In 1991 he discovered tektite glass spherules in Haiti, proving that the massive impact of a meteorite caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Two centuries of mystery

The civilization on Sumbawa Island has intrigued researchers ever since Dutch and British explorers visited in the early 1800s and were surprised to hear a language that did not sound like any other spoken in Indonesia, Sigurdsson said. Some scholars believe the language more closely resembled those spoken in Indochina. But not long after Westerners first encountered Tambora, the society was destroyed.

“The explosion wiped out the language. That’s how big it was,” Sigurdsson said. “But we’re trying to get these people to speak again, by digging.”

Some of what the researchers found may suggest Tambora’s inhabitants came from Indochina or had commercial ties with the region, Sigurdsson said. For example, ceramic pottery uncovered during the dig resembles that common to Vietnam.

Origins are unclear

John Miksic, an archaeologist at the National University of Singapore, has seen video of the dig and said he believes Sigurdsson’s team did find a dwelling destroyed by the eruption. But he doubts the Tamborans were from Indochina or spoke a language from that area. If Vietnamese-style ceramics reached the island, it was probably through trade with intermediaries, Miksic said.

During the dig, Sigurdsson’s team found the charred skeleton of a woman who was most likely in her kitchen. A metal machete and a melted glass bottle lay nearby. The remains of another person were found just outside what was probably the front door.

The team included researchers from the University of North Carolina and the Indonesian Directorate of Volcanology.