Kawah Ijen Volcanic Complex is a special group of stratified volcanoes in Indonesia’s East Java province, which is famous for its unique blue amber lava flows. Research shows that the combustion of sulfur in the presence of oxygen in the air has shown an extraordinary view of lavas in the cave of Ijen, which is unparalleled in the world.
“The blue eruption and melting of this volcano are not normal, and unfortunately what is seen on many websites is not lava and magma,” said Olivier Grunewald, a French scientist and photographer of Cave Ijen. This unique melting is essentially light produced by the combustion of sulfur gases. Sulfur gases escape from volcanic fissures at extremely high pressures and temperatures, sometimes reaching as high as 600 degrees Celsius. When exposed to air, it ignites and throws its flames into the air even more than five meters away. Under these conditions, some gases in the sulfur liquid are converted from steam to liquid.
This process continues until the liquid contents finally reach the bottom of the volcano, and this is exactly the scene that appears to the eyes of an uninformed viewer like the lava or magma of an erupting volcano. Grunewald added that he did not use any filters to capture his extraordinary photos, and that what he saw in his pictures were only real images of volcanic eruptions, the extraordinary views of which could be seen at night.
Geologist and researcher Cynthia Werner, who is working on a project called Alaska Volcanic Observation, believes that the photographs taken by Olivier Grunewald indicate an unusual phenomenon. He adds that he has never seen this amount of sulfur flowing in a volcano. In addition, evidence suggests that a 1988 fire in the Yellowstone National Park forest area was similar to these flames because the heat from the flames also melted sulfur around the pores and hydrothermal ducts. Founded on March 1, 1872, Yellowstone National Park is the first national park in the world to owe much of its fame to specific geological and unique wildlife features. This park is one of the undisputed evidences in the world that can prove how destructive the impact of human activity on the planet is.
The 1988 park fire, cited by Professor Werner, was one of the largest fires in the park’s lifetime and reportedly lasted several months. During the fire, about 36% of the total area of the park and two major tourist areas were severely damaged.
The crisis could only be contained by the change of seasons and the arrival of autumn rains, but as Dr. Werner says, one can still see traces of flames similar to Kawah Ijen volcano in the form of dark lines in the park. According to Professor Werner, it is relatively normal to see molten sulfur around the holes and hot volcanic ducts, or fumaroles of Kawah Ijen volcano. This is because minerals often have a low melting point of about 115 degrees Celsius, and conversely, the temperature is much higher in hot pores or fumaroles. Fumaroles are small holes in the earth’s crust that appear near a volcano from which gas, smoke, and steam escape.
Kawah Ijen Volcano, as mentioned earlier, is a stratified or composite volcano. These types of volcanoes usually have high altitude and slope, conical shape, dense magma and explosive eruptions, but at the top of Kawah Ijen volcano you can see another natural wonder and it is nothing but the largest blue body of the volcano full of hydrochloric acid. The acid makes the water stored in this volcano look green. Professor Werner describes how the lake’s water becomes acidic: “The volcano releases hydrogen chloride gas, which combines with the water, and the result is an extremely concentrated acid called hydrochloric acid with a pH of almost zero. The water volume of this lake is estimated at 36 million cubic meters.
