Ijen

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Ijen
Kawah Ijen volcano
Elevation	2,799 m (9,183 ft)
Listing	Spesial Ribu
Location
Location	Banyuwangi Regency, Java, Indonesia
Coordinates	8°03′29″S 114°14′31″E / 8.058°S 114.242°E / -8.058; 114.242
Geology
Type	Stratovolcano
Last eruption	1999 or 2002

1937 Dutch map of the Ijen Plateau

The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes in the Banyuwangi Regency of East Java, Indonesia. It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kilometers wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name of this volcano resembles that of a different volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, also known as Gunung Merapi; there is also a third volcano named Marapi in Sumatra. The name "Merapi" means "mountain of fire" in the Indonesian language.

West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake. The lake is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is low-paid and very onerous. Workers earn around $5.50-$8.30 (Rp 50,000 - Rp 75,000) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks about three kilometers to the nearby Pultuding Valley to get paid.^[1]

Many other post-caldera cones and craters are located within the caldera or along its rim. The largest concentration of post-caldera cones forms an east/west-trending zone across the southern side of the caldera. The active crater at Kawah Ijen has an equivalent radius of 361 metres (1,184 ft), a surface of 0.41 square kilometres (0.16 sq mi). It is 200 metres (660 ft) deep and has a volume of 36 cubic hectometres (29,000 acre·ft).

The lake is recognised as the largest highly acidic crater lake in the world,^[2] and since it is also a source for the river Banyupahit, resulting in highly acidic and metal-polluted water, it has a significant detrimental effect on the downstream river ecosystem.^[3] In 2008, explorer George Kourounis took a small rubber boat out onto the acid lake to measure its acidity. The pH of the water in the crater was measured to be 0.5 due to sulfuric acid.^[4]

Ijen 3D

Sulfur mining at Ijen

Map of Ijen Crater, where sulfur is mined

An active vent at the edge of the lake is a source of elemental sulfur, and supports a mining operation. Escaping volcanic gasses are channeled through a network of ceramic pipes, resulting in condensation of molten sulfur.^[5] The sulfur, which is deep red in color when molten, pours slowly from the ends of these pipes and pools on the ground, turning bright yellow as it cools. The miners break the cooled material into large pieces and carry it away in baskets. Miners must carry loads, which range from 75 kilograms (165 lb) to 90 kilograms (200 lb), up 300 metres (980 ft) to the crater rim, with a gradient of 45 to 60 degrees and then 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) down the mountain for weighing. Most miners make this journey twice a day. A nearby sugar refinery pays the miners by the weight of sulfur transported; as of September 2010, the typical daily earnings were equivalent to approximately $13 US. The miners often use insufficient protection while working around the volcano ^[6] and complain of numerous respiratory afflictions. There are 200 miners, who extract 14 tons per day or only 20 percent of the continuous daily deposit.^[7]

Media

Ijen and its sulfur mining was featured as a topic on the 5th episode of the BBC television documentary Human Planet. In the documentary film War Photographer, journalist James Nachtwey visits Ijen and struggles with noxious fumes while trying to photograph workers. Michael Glawogger film Workingman's Death is about sulfur workers.

Gallery

The sulfuric lake of Kawah Ijen Mountain's cauldron, Indonesia
The sulfur miner of Kawah Ijen mountain, Indonesia
The sulfur miner of Kawah Ijen mountain, Indonesia
the resting point on the way to the peak of Kawah Ijen mountain, Indonesia
the ornament of sulfur which is sold at Kawah Ijen Mountain, Indonesia

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ijen.

↑ Indra Harsaputra, Kawah Ijen: Between potential and threat', The Jakarta Post, 19 December 2011.
↑ "Smithsonian Institute Volcano info page for Kawah Ijen". Retrieved 9 December 2013.
↑ "University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Natural Pollution Caused by the Extremely Acidic Crater Lake Kawah Ijen, East Java, Indonesia". Retrieved 9 December 2013.
↑ Measuring the acidity of Kawah Ijen crater lake
↑ Think your work is hell? Thank your lucky stars you didn't have to mine sulphur for 12 hours in a volcano crater filled with toxic fumes that will probably kill you before you are 30 Daily Mail, 2012-10-16.
↑ Grunewald, Olivier (2010-12-08). "Kawah Ijen by night". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2013-10-11.
↑ "Kawah Ijen: Between potential & threat". The Jakarta Post, December 19, 2011. Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Banyuwangi travel guide from Wikivoyage

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