August 28, 2009
Picture of the Week—Indonesian Mud Flow
On May 29, 2006, hot mud began to erupt within the city of Sidoarjo, in eastern Java, Indonesia. The mud volcano (also known as the Lapindo mud flow, or Lusi) hasn’t stopped since then, spewing thousands of cubic feet of material every day. Nearly 2,000 acres of land have been covered with mud, burying roads, homes and factories and displacing almost 60,000 people so far. In the image above, you can see the mud contained by levees built to hold back the flow. (In this false-color image, vegetation appears red and mud is colored gray.)
Lusi’s origin was debated at first, and geologists wondered if an earthquake two days earlier 155 miles away might have triggered the event. But they determined that the eruption was actually triggered by oil and gas drilling just 650 feet from where the mud began to flow. The Indonesians, however, have ruled the incident a natural disaster and halted their criminal probe earlier this month.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data from NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.
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Hey that is pretty interesting, but obviously caused ny the drilling of an oil well into water…..hot water. Does’nt it seem as if it will dissolve so much material that it will collapse back in on it self at some point?
I like the idea of steel balls and chain. very novel.
maybe just use bigger ones to try and slow down the flow. Enough of them should stop the flow with just mass, but what happens if it just erodes more and more soil around the attempted blockage???
Stephanie R