History of the Batur Volcano
Round 23,000 BC, during the cataclysms that marked the forelast shift of the earth's poles, an explosion of unimaginable magnitude formed the large Batur caldera which right now has a diameter of ca. thirteen km - one of many largest and most impressive in the world. Before that eruption Mt Batur rose about 3,800 m above sea stage and it was thus larger than Mt Agung (3,142 m / 10,308 toes).
One other heavy eruption befell round 10,500 BC - at the time of the last shift of the earth's poles - and fashioned a smaller, secondary crater with a diameter of ca. 7,5 km within the southeastern a part of the bigger caldera, nowadays marked by the Bali Aga villages of Songan and the favored panoramic viewpoint of Penelokan, with the current volcanic cone in its center. ref: Villas in Bali
The Batur caldera therefore actually consists of a big, double elliptic crater with a total diameter of 10 x thirteen km.
In contrast to the volcanoes of Hawaii, the place the magmas move freely and accumulate steadily as spreading lava sheets, Indonesian magmas are highly viscous and transfer far much less readily. On reaching the floor, these gradual-moving magmas have time to cool, periodically blocking release of the pent up forces beneath. Thus trapped, nice reservoirs of liquid magma accumulate within the volcano, build up stress till the earth can include it no longer. With out warning the top of the volcano provides way and the contained magma bursts forth with unimaginable violence. ref:
With the passage of time the volcano, its core now emptied, slowly collapses again inside itself to kind a giant sunken crater or caldera. Ultimately, as contemporary magma reaches the floor, new volcanic vents could appear throughout the caldera, slowly occluding it as discharged ash and lava gradually continue to accumulate.
Mount Batur today
Mt. Batur as we all know it at the moment was shaped by an eruption in 1917; it is a nonetheless energetic, secondary volcanic cone sporting quite a few subsidiary vents around its flanks. Measured from the floor of the crater it rises inside the circling embrace of the caldera to a top of ca. seven-hundred meter (1,717 meter / 5,633 ft above sea stage).
The eruptions of Mt Batur have been registered since 1804 and since that time 22 eruptions of the volcano have occurred.
Since 1917 Mt Batur erupted three more occasions (1926, 1974, 1994), on every event shifting a bit of extra to the west, creating new sub craters which can be referred to as Batur I, II and III respectively. ref: Luxury Seminyak Villas
As it grows via frequent minor (and occasionally not so minor!) eruptions it steadily enlarges its base at the expense of the lake, which is slowly shrinking in consequence.
With an altitude of 1,746 m Mt Penulisan varieties the second highest level of the caldera rim; here one can discover the mysterious Pura Tegeh Koripan, the best and possibly additionally the oldest temple of Bali.
Idyllically positioned in an remoted area along the jap shore of lake Batur on the foot of Mount Abang, with an altitude of 2,152 meter (7,467 feet) the best point of the caldera rim, lies the Bali Aga village of Trunyan.
Lake Batur
Lake Batur fills a big a part of the smaller, secundary caldera ref: Cheap Seminyak Villas
