Monday, April 26, 2010

Eruptions and Disruptions
 by James P. Sterba
Wall Street Journal


Iceland's volcano pales before giants that may have sped U.S. settlers and led to 'Frankenstein'

On the evening of April 5, 1815, on the island of Sumbawa in what's now Indonesia, a volcano named Tambora began to rumble and cough. It sputtered on and off for days. Then on the 11th and 12th, eruptions shook houses and boats hundreds of miles away. Over 10 days, Tambora belched 24 cubic miles of lava and pulverized rock (try to imagine a cubic mile of anything), and created a crater more than three miles wide and nearly a mile deep.

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