Java's Segara Wedi - "The Sea of Sand"
Located on Indonesia's island of Java, the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park lies within an active volcanic region.
One of the calderas, Gunung Bromo (named after Brahma, the Hindu God of Creation), is near constant active; venting steam & sulphuric gases with occasional incandescent material. The latter results in a rain of ash which falls and builds upon a plain within the enclosing Tenggar Caldera. This plain is known as the Sea of Sand (Segara Wedi in Indonesian) Crossing the sea is a cumbersome task, through thick soft choking dust, to reach the fertile slopes on either side of the ancient Tenggar Caldera where, on the northern & eastern flanks, crops grow in abundance and, to the south & west, rain-forest stretches across and beyond to Mt Semeru. The plants on all sides enjoying fertile fresh nutrient-rich volcanic soils. These photos were taken a few months after an unusually active period, when a month of continuous eruptions resulted in a prolonged fresh ash fall. |
With sullen fits and jitter jerks
once more she shook the land, To tremble folk and tree and rock and sprawling sea of sand. From rumblings from within the Earth where new presence was decreed And when all the dust had settled, her ash did seat new seed . |