Mt. Tambora volcano, Indonesia April 10, 1815 @ 19:00 hours

January 8, 2006

Tambora Volcano1816: the year without a summer "the bright sun was extinguish'd... morn came and went--and came, and brought no day" -Darkness by George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1816 Mount Tambora, located at Sumbawa Besar, Indonesia [LMT -7:49:44] erupted about 19:00 hours on April 10, 1815. Volcanoes are measured by a Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), on a scale of 1-8. Tambora had a VEI of 7. Only 4 other volcanoes in the last 10,000 years have had a VEI that high, yet Tambora has been the only "VEI-7" in recorded history. The island is located on a very active volcanic arc, which is part of the

so-called 'Ring of Fire' around the Pacific Ocean. During the year 1816 people suffered throughout the entire world because of its atmospheric effects. During April 1815 on the island of Sumbawa Besar in the eastern Indonesian islands, for the first time in about 5000 years, erupted the volcano of Mount Tambora. All began with a series of large explosions, sending a massive volcanic column into the air. This was the biggest volcanic eruption in "recorded" history. The eruption lasted several days. It blew a chunk off of the mountain almost a mile wide. The volcanic column, after flying 40 km into the sky during the first few hours of eruption, boomerang-returned to the ground, creating a huge pyroclastic flow of ash, pumice, and debris. The pyroclastic flow alone soon killed more than 10,000 people in its path.

The ash that fell from Tambora travelled as far as 1300 km (800 miles) away. When the pyroclastic flow reached the ocean, the debris created such a large displacement of water that tsunamis as high as 5 meters emanated out from the island. These tsunamis caused flooding, devastation, and death on many of the other Indonesian islands Beginning on April 5, 1815 and continuing through the middle of July that year, its explosions directly affected an immense area that included the entire Indonesia archipelago. Heavy volcanic ash rains also specifically affected the islands. In the immediate area approximately 92,000 people were killed because of pyroclastic flows and later starvation and disease. Following on the spewings of 200 million tons of sulphur dioxide impacting the entire globe 1816 became known throughout the world as "the year without summer" because of the extreme weather conditions the eruption caused. From the crater itself there

were seen to ascend three fiery pyroclastic columns, which, after soaring to a great height, appeared to unite in a confused manner at their tops. Soon, the whole of the side of the mountain next to Sumbawa Island's village of Sang'ir seemed like one vast body of liquid fire. The glare was terrific, until towards late evening, when it became partly obscured by the vast quantities of dust, ashes, stones, and cinders thrown up from the crater. According to the diary of the Rajah of Sang'ir the Volcano finally catastrophically blew its top at about 7:00 pm on Monday evening, April 10, 1815. The resulting gas and pumice shower followed within hours; between nine and ten o'clock at

night the ashes and stones began to fall upon the village of Sang'ir, and all round the neighbouring habitations of Sumbawa Island and beyond. FURTHER REFERENCE http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/summer/scor/articles/scor43.htm

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