Well, this will be a non tectonic post ! But I cannot resist to share some amazing and dramatic views of the Krakatau (also written Krakatoa) volcano by R. Verbeek drawn in 1883, as well as other historical drawings about the 1883 disaster – “perhaps the most famous volcanic event in recorded history” (Simkin & Fiske 1983).
Why ? In fact, my motivation for this story initiated in the last days of 2018. On December 22nd a deadly tsunami hit the coasts of Java and Sumatra on each side of the Sunda Strait, Indonesia. Culprit has been the volcano nicknamed Baby Krakatau (Anak Krakatau) whose eruption and flank collapse apparently rose the tsunami waves. You'll find a complete witness report with many photographs on Øystein Lund Andersen Blog. You may also read this piece by R.G. Andrews, or this page by the Singapore Earth Observatory. Keep in mind that scientific evaluation of this recent event is still ongoing as well as the eruption itself.
Anak Krakatau is a quite small and young volcanic edifice growing in the vast undersea caldera that formed after the gigantic 1883 explosion of the much larger Krakatau volcano. I will not recall the full story of this eruption. As you are reading an historical blog, you may refer to the short 1983 article written for the 100th anniversary of Krakatau's eruption and published in AGU-EOS by T. Simkin and R. Fiske. My interest here is more aesthetic and artistic, focusing on the awesome chromolithographs and maps published by the Dutch geologist Rogier Verbeek.
Verbeek visited the region few weeks after the 1883 disaster. He reported about his observations in a ~500 pages book, while a second volume displayed extremely beautiful illustrations: maps, landscape views and geological sections. In particular, several lithographs show the remains of the volcanic edifice after its explosion: three islands mark the rim of the collapsed caldera, one of them exposing the internal structure of the volcano.
The view above shows the steep NW face of the remaining Krakatau island. See below Verbeek's maps, and his geological sections, displaying the geography and inferred volcanic structure before and after the August 1883 eruption.
You may compare Verbeek's maps and sections to the ones below taken from the famous report by the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society published in 1988. You may also refer to the 2018 situation before the December 22nd eruption and partial collapse of Anak Krakatau, the small island in the middle (from Google map).
Rogier Verbeek also documented graphically the traces and dramatic effects of the tsunami and volcanic explosion on the islands nearby. See for example the following figures.
I will last with two fantastic graphics taken again from the Royal Society 1988 book. The first one is a famous view of the Krakatau in May 1883 during the early stages of the eruption. The second one is an amazing map showing "the places at which the sounds of the explosions were heard on August 26-27", a big bang heard more than 4000km away !
- R. Verbeek illustrations may be found from the Royal Collection Trust (only few ones but the maps and geological sections) or from the Biblioteca Nacional de España flickr repository (only the chromolithographs of landscape views).
- The 1988 report of the Royal Society may be downloaded from ETH Zürich bibliothek following this link.
- Simkin, T., & Fiske, R. S. (1983). Krakatau 1883: A classic geophysical event. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 64(34), 513-514. Sorry, it's paywalled by AGU, but may be retrieved while searching internet ;-)
- Verbeek, R. D. M. (1885). Krakatau. 495 pp. Govt. Press, Batavia. Link.
