Two hundred years ago, the earth was a big natural event - the eruption of Tambora, which affected the climate of the entire planet, and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
geographical location of the volcano
Tambora volcano located in the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, on the peninsula of Sangar.It is necessary to immediately clarify that Tambora not the largest volcano in the region, Indonesia has about 400 volcanoes and the largest of them, Kerinci, Sumatra rises.
himself peninsula Sangar width of 36 km in length and has a length of 86 km.Height same Tambora volcano in April 1815 reached 4,300 meters, the eruption of the Tambora volcano in 1815 led to a reduction of its height to its present 2,700 meters.
eruption
After three years of increasing activity of all, the volcano Tambora April 5, 1815 was fully awake when there was the first eruption, which lasted 33 hours.The explosion of the volcano Tambora has created a column of smoke and ash rose to a height of about 33 km.However, the nearby population did not leave their homes, despite the volcano in Indonesia, as already mentioned, the volcanic activity was not unusual.
is noteworthy that more than initially feared the people that were in the distance.Thunder was heard the explosion of the volcano on the island of Java in the densely populated city of Yogyakarta.Residents have decided that they heard the thunder of guns.In this regard have been put on alert troops, and began to run along the coast in search of ships the ship in distress.However, that appears on the following day the ash prompted the true reason to hear the sound of explosions.
Tambora volcano remained a calm state for a few more days, until April 10.The fact that this has not led to an eruption of lava flowing out, she froze in the crater, contributing to heighten the pressure and causing new, even more terrible eruption that happened.
April 10 about 10 o'clock in the morning there was a new eruption, this time a column of ash and smoke rose to an altitude of about 44 km.Thunderclap from the explosion has been heard on the island of Sumatra.In this place of eruption (Mount Tambora) on the map of Sumatra is relatively far away, at a distance of 2 500 km.
According to eyewitnesses, at seven in the evening the same day, the intensity of the eruption has increased, and by eight o'clock the island rained hail of stones, the diameter of which reaches 20 cm, followed again threw the ashes.As early as ten o'clock on a volcano rising up into the sky three fiery columns merged into one, and the volcano Tambora turned into a mass of "liquid fire."About seven rivers of molten lava began to spread in all directions around the volcano, destroying the entire population of the peninsula Sangar.Even in a sea of lava spread to 40 km from the island, and the characteristic odor could be felt even in Batavia (old name of the capital of Jakarta), situated at a distance of 1,300 km.
End eruption
After another two days, April 12, Tambora volcano was still active.The ash cloud has spread to the western coast of Java and southern Sulawesi, which is 900 km from the volcano.According to residents, it was impossible to see the dawn before 10 am, not even the birds began to sing almost until noon.Out of the eruption only, by 15 April, and the ashes are not settled until April 17.Formed after the eruption of the volcano crater reached 6 km in diameter and 600 meters deep.
victims of the volcano Tambora
estimated that died during the eruption on the island of around 11 thousand people, but it is not limited to the number of victims.Later, as a result of famine and epidemics on the island of Sumbawa and nearby Lombok killed about 50 thousand people, and the cause of death was boosted after the eruption of a tsunami, whose effects spread for hundreds of kilometers around.
Physics consequences of the disaster
When the eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815, release of energy in the 800 megatonnes that can be compared with the explosion of 50,000 atomic bombs like Hiroshima.The eruption was eight times stronger than the well-known eruption of Vesuvius and four times more powerful than what happened after the eruption of Krakatoa.
eruption of Tambora volcano rose in the air 160 cubic kilometers of solid, thick ash on the island reached 3 meters.Sailors, while departing on a voyage, a few years met on his way from the island of pumice, which reached a size of five kilometers.
Incredible amounts of ash and sulfur gases reached the stratosphere, rising to a height of 40 km.Ash covered the sun by all living things, are at a distance of 600 km around the volcano.And around the world there was a haze of orange hue and blood-red sunsets.
«Year without a Summer»
Millions of tons of sulfur dioxide released during the eruption, in the same 1815 reached Ecuador, and the next year due to climate change in Europe, the phenomenon was then called "the year without a summer."
In many European countries then dropped a reddish brown and even snow in the Swiss Alps in the summer almost every week there was snow, and the average temperature in Europe was lower by 2-4 degrees.The same decrease in temperature observed in America.
Worldwide bad harvest led to higher prices for food and hunger, which along with the epidemic has claimed 200,000 lives.
Comparative characteristics of the eruption
eruption of Tambora volcano befell (1815), was unique in the history of mankind, he was awarded the seventh category (out of eight possible) on a scale of volcanic hazards.Scientists were able to determine that over the last 10 thousand years, there were four such eruptions.Before the volcano Tambora similar disaster occurred in 1257 in the neighboring island of Lombok, the site of the crater of the volcano is now there is a lake Segara Anak area of 11 square kilometers (see photo).
first visit to the volcano after the eruption
first traveler that came to the island with magnificent volcano Tambora missed first trimester, became a Swiss botanist Heinrich Zollinger, who led a team of researchers to study the created as a result of a natural disaster ecosystem.It happened in 1847, later signed 32 years after the eruption.Nevertheless, from the crater it was still smoke rising, and advancing on the frozen crust of the researchers fell at its fault in the still hot volcanic ash.
But researchers have noted the emergence of a new life on earth Incinerate where places are already beginning to turn green foliage plants.And even at the height of more than 2 thousand. Meters were found thickets of casuarina (coniferous plant resembling ivy).
As shown by further observation, from 1896 on the slopes of the volcano inhabited by 56 species of birds, while one of them (Lophozosterops dohertyi) was first discovered there.
Influence eruption on the art and science
Art historians hypothesize that it was unusually gloomy existence in nature, caused by the eruption of the Indonesian volcano, inspired the famous British landscape painter Dzhozefa Mallord William Turner.His paintings often adorn the gloomy, gray tightened languishing sunsets.
But the most famous was the creation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", which was conceived precisely the summer 1816, when she was still a bride Percy Shelley, along with the bride and the famous Lord Byron stayed on the shores of Lake Geneva.It was bad weather and incessant rains inspired by Byron's idea, and he suggested that each of the satellites to come up and tell the terrible story.Mary came up with exactly the story of Frankenstein, which was the basis of her book, written two years later.
himself Lord Byron also wrote under the influence of the situation known poem "Darkness," which translated Lermontov, here's a line from it: "I saw a dream which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguished ... "All of the work has been steeped in hopelessness dovlevshey that year over nature.
This chain of inspiration is not interrupted, the poem "Darkness" was read Byron's physician John Polidori, who wrote under her impression of his novel "The Vampire".
The famous Christmas carol "Silent Night» (Stille Nacht) was written on the verses of the German priest Josef Mohr, which he composed in the same rainy 1816 and which opened a new romantic genre.
Surprisingly, but a poor harvest and high prices for barley inspired Karl Drais, a German inventor who build vehicles that can replace the horse.So he invented the prototype of the modern bicycle, and it is a surname Dresen entered our everyday life with the word "trolley".
