Tambora (Indonesia)

Status Normal Eruption 1967 2850m
Stratovolcano (Subduction zone / Continental crust (> 25 km))

The massive Tambora stratovolcano forms the entire 60-km-wide Sanggar Peninsula on northern Sumbawa Island. The largely trachybasaltic-to-trachyandesitic volcano grew to about 4,000 m elevation before forming a caldera more than 43,000 years ago. Late-Pleistocene lava flows largely filled the early caldera, after which activity changed to dominantly explosive eruptions during the early Holocene. Tambora was the source of history's largest explosive eruption, in April 1815. Pyroclastic flows reached the sea on all sides of the peninsula, and heavy tephra fall devastated croplands, causing an estimated 60,000 fatalities. The eruption of an estimated more than 150 km3 of tephra formed a 6-km-wide, 1250-m-deep caldera and produced global climatic effects. Minor lava domes and flows have been extruded on the caldera floor at Tambora during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Tambora volcano on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island was the site of the world's largest historical eruption in April 1815. This NASA Landsat mosaic shows the 6-km-wide caldera truncating the 2850-m-high summit of the massive volcano. Pyroclastic flows during the 1815 eruption reached the sea on all sides of the 60-km-wide volcanic peninsula, and the ejection of large amounts of tephra caused world-wide temperature declines in 1815 and 1816.

NASA Landsat7 image (worldwind.arc.nasa.gov)

Last updated 2024-04-19 00:10:09