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IJEN CRATER LAKE
The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes, in 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 "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. 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).
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.
Sulfur
Mining at Ijen
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.
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 (170 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 (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[2] and
complain of numerous respiratory afflictions. There are 200 miners which
extract 14 tons per day or only 20 percent of the daily continuously deposit.
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