Toba lake

The world’s largest volcanic lake is located on the island of Sumatra. in Indonesia. This is Toba, the largest lake in Indonesia. In the center of the island of Sumatra is the Great Sumatran fault: here one can feel the slightest changes of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates which makes the whole area one of the most seismically active on earth. Near this dangerous fault and is Toba.

The lake is a consequence of the most powerful in the last 25 million years of volcanic eruptions. It was about 73 500 (±3500) years ago and, according to experts, was in force in 8 points.

The Toba Caldera is located in the North Central part of Sumatra. From the equator it is separated about 200 km It was formed from the collapsed during the eruption of three volcanoes calderas, pulled a part of the land. It subsequently filled with water. In the middle of the lake Toba is Samosir island is the result of extrusion of lava from the center of the Caldera, and now gradually resurgent lava dome, possibly the largest on Earth. However, earlier it was a Peninsula. And the island of Samosir became after 1906, the Dutch paved the channel depth of 200 m. In this case, they say local residents feared that the island would float away in the middle of the lake and there drowned by the Way, on the shores of the lake are still inhabited by the representatives of the native for these places ethnic groups — batake. This is, in General, the peaceful tribe was partially Islamized within, and mostly Christianized by the settlers of the island that does not interfere with Betacam until the 1920s to preserve some archaic form of his life: Patriarchal slavery, hunting for human heads and even ritual cannibalism.

The volcano Toba is merciful, you cannot call the consequences of the eruption were catastrophic. The study of this question has divided scientists into two camps. One believe that this is one of the worst eruptions in the history of our planet, but do not see it as a direct connection with the subsequent events (soon the last ice age). Others see in it the cause and direct connection with the subsequent after some time, changes in the evolutionary development of the biosphere of the Earth. The very existence of Homo sapiens was threatened, as the eruption has destroyed so many people that the rest was a very poor gene pool. This estimated reduction in the gene pool of the population is called “genetic bottleneck”.

Formed after the eruption the lake was discovered by the Dutch linguist, an eminent specialist in the languages of the peoples of the Dutch East India Neubronner Herman van der, Tuuk (1824-1894 years). On behalf of the Bible Society of the Netherlands, he collected information for a dictionary of local dialects, which explored the Batak highlands. While traveling, he in 1853 he came to the lake. In 1868 Mr. lake visited another Dutchman Kate van de the Selects, an official of the colonial administration. He literally opened the way to the Dutch colonizers who in 1872 built a 30 km from lake Fort, and by 1890 had annexed these territories to the possessions of the Dutch East Indies. Batake all this time, not shrinking from no weapons, no magic, waged a guerrilla war, which ended only in 1907 the Active exploration of the island began in the 1940s Now study the volcano continues in the framework of the international project “Humanity and the eruption of the SUPERVOLCANO Toba 74 000 years ago: before and after the “big Bang””.

After another shake-up in the region in 2004 companions, there was a slight change in the shape of the Earth and changing the location of the Sumatra — several tens of meters. But fans of ethno – and ecotourism potential danger of the volcano and lake Toba are not afraid of running through the lake transaminase route from Medan via Berastagi and Bukittinggi in Padang extremely popular in their environment.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Island Of Sumatra.

Type: volcanic.

Largest island: Samosir (640 km 2 ).

FIGURES

Area: 1100 km2 (with Islands — 1258 km2 ).

Water volume: 240 km 3 .

Maximum length: 100 km.

Maximum width: 30 km.

Maximum depth: 529 m.