On April 10, 1815, Indonesia's Tambora Volcano produced the world's greatest eruption in recorded history.
An estimated 36 cubic miles of exploded rock and ash were spewed into the atmosphere, with debris from the eruption coloring the sky, tinting the rain and snow as well as floating on bodies of water around the world.
Approximately 12,000 people died as a direct result of the explosion, the choking rain of ash and fire, and from the tsunamis the eruption generated.
Enough ash was put into the atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface, which caused a brief global cooling. The following year, 1816, went down in history as the “year without a summer.”
The diminished sunlight caused crop failures around the planet, resulting in famine across China and later in Ireland.
Food was also scare elsewhere, causing prices to rise across Europe. The shortages provoked riots in Britain, France and Germany.
The photo of Tambora to the upper right was taken by an astronaut orbiting on the International Space Station on June 3, 2009.
It shows a huge caldera, measuring nearly 4 miles in diameter and 3,600 feet deep. It was formed when Tambora’s estimated 13,000-foot peak was blown off by the eruption followed by the draining of the magma chamber below.
Visible on the crater floor are a freshwater lake, recent sedimentary deposits and minor lava flows and domes that resulted from volcanic activity during the 19th and 20th centuries. Layered debris deposits are visible along the northwestern crater rim. Active fumaroles, or steam vents, still exist in the caldera.
In 2004, scientists discovered evidence of a village, and the remains of two adults buried beneath approximately 10 feet of ash in a gully on Tambora’s flank.
The village was a remnant of the former Kingdom of Tambora preserved by the 1815 eruption that destroyed it. The similarity of the Tambora site to that associated with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD has led to it being described as “the Pompeii of the East.”
