About Tambora Volcano
Tambora is a volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, best-known for its huge eruption in 1815--the largest explosive volcanic eruption in recorded history. Prior to the eruption, Tambora had stood dormant for around 5,000 years. Today the volcano stands 9,350 feet tall, and makes up the entirety of the Sanggar peninsula.
Geology
Tambora is a product of the immense forces driving the large tectonic plates which make up the earth's surface. According to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's Global Volcanism Program, Indonesia lies where the Indian Ocean plate is being forced beneath the Asian plate. As the Asian plate melts, the resulting magma rises through weak points in the earth's surface, creating the Indonesian volcanoes. This kind of plate boundary is known as a subduction zone, and tends to give rise to stratovolcanoes like Tambora. These are built up over time by the deposition of layers of thick lava and other volcanic material and are characterized by their classic cone shape and their explosive eruptions.
1815 Eruption
After thousands of years of dormancy, in 1812, Tambora started to emit steam and ash, accompanied by small earth tremors. On April 5, 1815, the volcano experienced a moderately large eruption which was heard 1,400 km away. On April 10, Tambora unleashed the largest eruption in recorded history, blowing a section of rock almost a mile wide off the peak. A column of ash and other volcanic material rose 28 miles into the atmosphere, before falling as a series of deadly pyroclastic flows. Ash from this eruption fell more than 800 miles away from Tambora.
Local Effects
The effect of the 1815 eruption on the surrounding area was catastrophic. According to the Pacific Disaster Center, an estimated 92,000 people were killed by the explosion itself, while a further 10,000 deaths were directly caused by falling volcanic material and super-heated pyroclastic flows. It is also thought that around 82,000 people died as a result of starvation and disease, both indirect effects of the eruption.
Global Effects
The 1815 eruption also had a serious impact on people elsewhere in the world. Ash and sulfur dioxide from Tambora were carried around the world in the upper atmosphere, reflecting sunlight away from the earth's surface and lowering temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by several degrees in the summer of 1816. In fact, 1816 is known as the "year without a summer." Frost was recorded in New England in every month of 1816, while snow fell in June. Crops failed, causing famine and hardship in North America, Europe and Asia.
Tambora Today
Recent research by geologist Haraldur Siggurdsson has uncovered details of the impact of the 1815 explosion on local people. Siggurdson discovered artifacts and remains from 1815 while digging on Tambora, which indicate the extremely high temperatures which caught local people unaware as they went about their daily lives. One woman whose remains Siggurdsson found was "lying on her back with her hands outstretched. She is holding a machete or a big knife in one hand. There is a sarong over her shoulder. The sarong is totally carbonized, just like her bones. Her head is resting on the kitchen floor, just caught there instantly and blown over by the flow." Today Tambora is quiet again, with no volcanic eruptions recorded since 1967, but like all dormant volcanoes, it has the potential to erupt again in the future.
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