More than 11 years after Lusi first erupted, researchers may have figured out why the mudflows haven’t stopped. Deep underground, Lusi is connected to a nearby volcanic system.
Mudvolcano Lusi is situated in Sidoardjo, in between Surabaya the capital of East Java and Malang, East Java's second largest city. Malang is situated 90 km south of Surabaya.
New evidence of connection Lusi and Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex
Images collected over a period of 10 months in the past 2 years show that a conduit (a kind of "pipe" underground) supplying mud to Lusi is connected to the magma chambers of the nearby Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex 6 kilometers below the surface. Adriano Mazzini, a geoscientist at the University of Oslo, states that this new study shows that the whole system was already existing. Everything was charged and ready to be triggered. Mazzini and other researchers suspect that a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Java two days before Lusi erupted. This earthquake triggered the Lusi eruption, by reactivating the fault system that connects Lusi to Arjuno-Welirang.
Volcanic connections underground
Volcanoes can be connected to each other deep underground. Scientists suspected Lusi and the Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex were somehow linked. Previous research already showed some of the gas Lusi expels is typically found in magma. But no one had yet shown that Lusi is physically connected to Arjuno-Welirang. Now it is clear.....
Lusi's history
On May 29, 2006, mud started erupting from several sites on the Indonesian island of Java. Boiling mud, water, rocks and gas poured from newly-created vents in the ground, burying entire towns and compelling many Indonesians to flee. By September 2006, the largest eruption site reached a peak, and enough mud gushed on the surface to fill 72 Olympic-sized swimming pools daily.
Lusi is not going to stop anytime soon
The eruption known as Lusi is still ongoing. Lusi has become the most destructive ongoing mud eruption in history. The relentless sea of mud has buried some villages 40 meters deep and forced nearly 60,000 people from their homes.
Lusi still periodically spurts jets of rocks and gas into the air like a geyser. It is now discharging around 80,000 cubic meters of mud each day – enough to fill 32 Olympic-sized pools.
Adriano Mazzini has been working on Lusi ever since 2006. Mazzini and other scientists are unsure how much longer Lusi will continue to erupt. While mud volcanoes are fairly common on Java, Lusi is a hybrid between a mud volcano and a hydrothermal vent. Lusi's connection to the nearby volcano Arjuno-Welirang will keep sediments cooking for years to come. In other words, Lusi’s not going to stop anytime soon.
Literature
This article is based on an article on the American Geophysical Union website.