A Preliminary Study of Vegetation in Indonesia mud volcanoes and its relationship to the geology Eri Sarmantua Sitinjak, Benyamin Sapiie, Agus M. Ramdhan
Department of Geological Engineering, Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Abstract
Since the eruption of the famous Lumpur Sidoarjo in 2006, the study of mud volcano in Indonesia is growing very fast. Mostly the research focus on the mud volcano in onshore North East Java Basin and Kendeng Basin in East and Central Java, extend from Sidoarjo to Salatiga. Nevertheless, other mud volcanoes also present in Sukabumi, West Java (Ciuyah Mud Volcano), in Madura Island (Soccah or Bujel Tasek Mud Volcano), in East Nusa Tenggara (Napan and Pulau Semau), and some are in offshore Madura strait. There has been no initial comprehensive study about the vegetation around mud volcanoes in Indonesia till now, nor has its relationship with geology of the mud volcano. This paper is a preliminary approach of summarizing the documented vegetation around mud volcanoes in Indonesia. It is hoped that this research will motivate other researchers in Indonesia to dig deeper or enhance this study. This research was done by doing field mapping visiting all the possible mud volcanoes manifestation in onshore Java and Madura Island, extend from Sukabumi to Madura. The samples from the mud volcano including the fluid, gas, mud and vegetation were collected and sent to the dedicated laboratory for deeper analysis. The chosen vegetations are those which is growing at the center and exactly at the periphery mud volcano. This is done to see the impact of the mud volcano material to the vegetation. We are sharing the laboratories result and the analysis in order the define the relationship to the geology, especially oil and gas exploration, natural disaster mitigation or the active Kendang thrust fault which located is nearby the mud volcanoes. The mud volcanoes were divided into active, less active and inactive mud volcano. We concluded that there is correlation between the vegetation and the activity of the mud volcanoes in Indonesia.
