Muddy playground: Recently launched documentary Mud Max reveal to the world the impact of the mud volcano disaster to the everyday life of people in Sidoarjo, East Java. Courtesy of Image Dynamics
A documentary about the mudflow in East Java premiered at the Arizona State University on Nov. 13. Immodicus, the London-based company that produces Mud Max – The Sidoarjo Mud Volcano Disaster, invited several Indonesian journalists, including Endy M. Bayuni of The Jakarta Post, to witness the launching and meet with top geologists at the university.
In a basement laboratory at the Arizona State University (ASU) campus, Kirsten Chojnicki runs 115 simulations of volcanic eruptions a day, using different configurations of mud, water and sand, gathering data from these tests.
Kirsten is a graduate under the supervision of Amanda Clarke, the university’s expert on volcanic eruptions.
The experiment using different models also looks into the eruption of underground mud volcanoes, a phenomenon that is now occurring thousands of kilometers away from here, precisely in East Java.
The mud volcano eruption in the densely populated Sidoarjo district has caught the attention of Clarke and fellow ASU rock scientists. The mudflow is popularly called “Lusi”, the abbreviations from the Indonesian words lumpur (mud) Sidoarjo.
International spotlight: The panelists at the dialogue after the screening of the documentary (photo above). Kip Hodges, director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, addresses the launching of the documentary (photo below). Courtesy of Image Dynamics
In a different room on the same basement floor, biochemistry expert Hilairy Hartnett is analyzing samples of mud, water and sand that she had collected from Sidoarjo during a visit there earlier this year.
Her research seeks to answer if the water that mixes with the mud comes from the sea or from the hot springs of a nearby volcano. Early results found that the flow consists of 90 percent water and 10 percent mud, and that the water is salty.
“It’s a very wet mud, soapy. Somewhat unusual,” Hartnett says.
JP/Endy M. Bayuni
But she refuses to draw any conclusions pending more results.
Hartnett is also getting help from Gwyneth Gordon who runs the Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratories on the same floor of the building.
Gordon and two of her students, Argentinian Carina Arrua and Arizonian Tyler Viliborghi are running tests using state of the art equipment to break down the samples from Hartnett into the tiniest components, including testing for arsenic, toxic and radioactivity levels. So refine is the equipment that it did detect uranium, but in very small negligible amount in the samples.
On the other side of the campus, inside a building that houses the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Ramond Arrowsmith, an earthquake expert and three graduate students are poring through satellite images of the Sidoarjo area that have been impacted by the mudflow, studying the land deformation caused by the mudflow underneath.
Again, Arrowsmith was careful in not putting forward any suggestions at this early stage. “My role is in making observations, and not recommendations,” he says.
Clarke, Arrowsmith, Hartnett and a fourth geologist, Jonathan Fink, ASU’s foundation professor of geological sciences, make up the core team that is now studying the Lusi phenomena. So far, they are mostly confined to doing laboratory tests, apart from the one-off visit to the location earlier in the year, but they are now looking at more active study, hopefully involving Indonesian students and experts.
Talking to these geologists, there is a sense of excitement at the chance of studying the mud volcano.
But why would the ASU take such a keen interest in Lusi when its rock scientists have, right on their doorstep, one of the world’s most magical geological formations, namely the Grand Canyon?
Clarke and her colleagues say mud volcano and the associated mudfow are not all that rare. What got them excited about Lusi is the sheer size of the volcano and that it is erupting underneath a densely populated area, making it even more challenging if not urgent for scientists to find answers and solutions.
“Lusi is one of the hottest topics in the geology world today,” Hartnett says.
While ASU is not the first institution to be studying Lusi, it is certainly hoping to be among the leading ones in gaining a greater understanding about the mud volcano.
The ASU geologists are quite familiar with the controversy over the May 2006 mudflow, although they have wisely stayed away from the fray. “Our interest is purely scientific,” Clarke says.
While not ruling out completely that the findings will have some practical application, she warns that any scientific conclusion about Lusi will still be some years down the track. “Understanding the volcano’s characters is the first step. For that, we need time series data, something we don’t have for Lusi,” she adds.
The jury is still out among experts about the precise cause of the mudflow, with one camp suggesting it was triggered by an earthquake in the nearby town of Yogyakarta two days earlier, and another saying it was caused by an error in the drilling activities of PT Brantas Lapindo, an oil and gas company operating in the area.
But while experts are still debating the mudflow’s causes, the issue in Indonesia is virtually settled, at least politically and legally, in favor of the natural disaster theorists. The House of Representatives and the Supreme Court have not found any evidence of negligence on the part of Lapindo. Police have also dropped any criminal investigations against the company.
The Bakrie Group’s majority-control of Lapindo further complicates the mudflow controversy. The group, led by Aburizal Bakrie, who until October was a senior member of Yudhoyono’s Cabinet and remains influential in his new position as chairman of the Golkar Party, is one of the parties in Yudhoyono’s new coalition government.
With the political and legal rulings absolving Bakrie Group, it is now up to the state to pick up the enormous infrastructure reparation bill and compensate the 60,000 displaced people.
Clarke says the Bakrie Group earlier approached ASU to do a study in Sidoarjo on its behalf, but the university said it did not want to be entangled in Bakri’s legal problems.
ASU came up with a counter proposal in which it would undertake a project in Sidoarjo, with some educational component thrown into the mix, hopefully with financing from Bakrie as well as other sources, Clarke says.
More precisely, ASU is hoping to bring Indonesian students to the School of Earth and Science Exploration (SESE) for a masters or doctorate degree, with Lusi as their research project. A SESE flyer says graduate and doctorate students will receive full scholarships. But ASU still needs to find sponsors to get their Lusi project off the ground.
ASU is already involved in Lusi as it is took part in the 27-month production of Mud Max, the 50-minute documentary film that looks into the mud volcano and its impact on the people in the area. The film is now being touted to global TV networks.
The documentary was launched in the nearby resort town of Scottsdale, in a ceremony with an Indonesian touch.
During the discussion following the screening, the geologists said they were under no illusion that they had all the answers to deal with the challenge being posed by Lusi.
Experts are still unable to determine when the mudflow will stop, with some geologists predicting several decades, meaning that more areas will likely be inundated by the mud unless the government, with the help of experts, comes up with practical solutions to deal with the mud.
The rate of flow of the mud suggests it is coming from a very big reserve, Tom Casadevall of the United States Geological Services (USGS) says. “If this was crude oil, we are talking about 30 years of oil flowing. Unfortunately, it’s only mud,” Casadevall adds.
Casadevall, who is familiar with Indonesia and Lusi, believes Indonesia will be able to deal with the challenge in the meantime.
“We’ve seen Indonesian creativity in dealing with the Lusi challenge so far. I believe they will continue to be creative.”
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