Updated 6.40pm AEDT, January 28

An eruption in east Java of Mt Bromo in the Tengger Caldera has resulted in the disruption of flights to and from Denpasar, the major airport servicing Bali. Below, several experts in the area of volcanology and geology respond.

Further information on the Tengger Caldera can be found on the Smithsonian website.

Also, Airbus have general flight operation briefing notes on volcanic ash awareness.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Mr Gordon Jackson is the manager of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Northern Territory Regional Forecast Centre where Australia’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) is located.

Friday 28 January 2011

“On Thursday afternoon the Bureau of Meteorology’s VAAC located in Darwin started issuing advisories for the eruption of Mt Bromo in eastern Java, Indonesia. This volcano has been showing signs of unrest for the past two months with low-level advisories issued from the VAAC at the time. Reports from Indonesia indicate that the eruption has eased today with the height of ash only reaching 3 km. However the ash cloud near Bali will be expected to remain at a height of 5.5 km. An ash plume is still visible on satellites extending about 350 km to the east southeast of Mt Bromo.

During the next 24 hours winds are expected to ease with a dispersing ash plume spreading northward over Bali and eastern Java. Several international airlines have cancelled or delayed flights to and from the island. This eruption and ash plume will continue to be monitored by Darwin VAAC with regular advisories being made available to airlines through the Bureau of Meteorology’s web page at www.bom.gov.au/info/vaac/advisories.shtml.”

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Dr Mark Tingay is a geologist from The University of Adelaide’s Australian School of Petroleum

“Mt Bromo, located in East Java, is one of Indonesia’s most spectacular volcanoes and a common tourist destination. Mt Bromo is an active volcano that has had numerous major eruptions in the past, such as the 2004 eruption that killed two people. Mt Bromo is a ‘stratovolcano’, (erupting a mixture of ash and lava) and is typical of volcanoes found throughout the Indonesian Archipelago, and has developed from processes related to the subduction of the Australian tectonic plate underneath Southeast Asia. Mt Bromo has been at a higher eruption alert status since November 2010 due to observations of increased shallow tremor activity and ash eruptions, with eruption intensity increasing markedly over the last week.”

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Professor Richard Arculus is from the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra

“Bromo is the currently most active vent in the Tengger Caldera; the Caldera is part of a 25 km-long volcanic massif that includes the dangerously explosive volcano Semeru at its southern end. The dominant activity at Bromo has been relatively small scale ash eruptions with small lahars.”
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