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For the third day in a row flights have been grounded across Indonesia due to ongoing eruptions from Mount Rinjani. In an event similar to the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, which cancelled over 100,000 flights, Rinjani is ejecting ash up to 14,000 feet and causing hazardous flying conditions in and around the Bali International Airport.
The eruption has caused airport closures for over 120 miles, including the Bali International Airport, where airplanes have been grounded and wrapped to ensure ash does not infiltrate the aircraft engines. To date, 6,000 passengers have been stranded Rinjani eruption.
Mount Rinjani is an active volcano in Indonesia, located on the island of Lombok. (Credit: Ary... [+]
Despite the significant disruption to air traffic in the area, this eruption is minor for Rinjani, which has had larger eruptions periodically. The last eruption was from February 2010 to May 2010 with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 2. The Rinjani caldera (a crater formed by volcanic collapse or explosion) formed in the 13th century with a VEI of 7. This eruption was large enough to deposit ash and sulfur in the Arctic and is thought to may have triggered the Little Ice Age, a global cooling period starting around 1250 AD. This eruption was the largest in the past 2000 years and is a significant eruption in literature as the timing was coincident with humans learning to write.
Since the 13th century, Rinjani has been known to repeatedly erupt at low levels that do not pose significant risk to local residents and has become a normal part of life in an archipelago with 127 active volcanoes. Rinjani is part of what's known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, a string of volcanoes that wrap around the greater Pacific Ocean.
Approximately 90% of all earthquakes around the world occur as a part of this Ring of Fire . These eruptions are due to the slow spreading of the Pacific Ocean along the East Pacific Rise as part of global plate tectonics. This newly formed oceanic crust thus pushes or is pulled (an ongoing debate) below continental crust along the western North and South America and Eastern Asia and Pacific countries.
What's certain is that the volcanism occurring from subduction of the Pacific Plate underneath the Australian Plate will cause future significant eruptions along the string of Indonesian islands. With better technology and monitoring, volcanologists can hopefully better predict the likelihood of a large eruption and warn local populations.
