Lusi mud volcano on Java Island - Lusi mud flow seen from space - The...

Lusi mud volcano on Java Island - Lusi mud flow seen from space - The Lusi mud volcano (Sidoarjo) erupted in May 2006 and its flows continue to expand. Comparison of two satellite photos taken on August 24, 2004, on the left, and on November 11, 2008, on the right. On these false-coloured images obtained by the Terra satellite, the vegetation appears in red, the mud of the volcano in grey. On May 29, 2006, a mud volcano began erupting in a densely populated area in eastern Java, Indonesia. In the months that followed, the Sidoarjo mud flow (also known as the Lapindo mud flow, or Lusi) showed no signs of slowing, and mitigation efforts such as dropping chains of concrete balls down the crater proved ineffective. By June 2008, the massive mud lake spawned by this eruption had smothered a dozen villages and displaced some 30,000 residents. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on Nasa's Terra satellite acquired these images on November 11, 2008, (right) and August 24, 2004 (left). In these false - color images, red indicates vegetation, pale blue and green indicate bare ground and/or fallow fields, and black indicates water. The mud from the volcano appears charcoal gray