Gamkonoro Mt., Moluccas Islands

Abstract

Mount Gamkonoro (1°24′N, 127°32′E), also known as Gammacanorre, is the highest (1,635 m) peak of Halmahera Islands, Indonesia. It is characterized by an elongated series of craters along its north–south stretching rift. Strong eruption of 1673 was accompanied by tsunami waves, which inundated nearby coastal villages. The volcano erupted again on July 10, 2007, when over 8,000 people were reported to have fled their homes located in the endangered region.

Figure 78 is a copper engraving reproduced from the encyclopedic work edited by Kraemer (1902–1904), originally published in the 1780s in the Dutch edition of “Histoire Générale des Voyages.” The picture probably came into existence in a printing house of a Dutch publisher who utilized a sketch of an anonymous sailor or merchant of the East Indian Trade Company. This company, in the late seventeenth century, had its regional trade domicile on the Moluccas (at present called the Halmahera Islands). The figure illustrated the explosion of the Gamkonoro volcano in 1673. According to Aprodov (1982), Gamkonoro is a large andesite strato-volcano of some 15-km in diameter. It has been split into two parts by a younger rift running in the meridian direction over the volcano summit. Four calderas with a number of fumaroles are located at the rift bottom, at the elevation of some 300 m.