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Initiation of the Lusi mudflow disaster

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 493–494 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor —

The Lusi mudflow is a unique disaster. Mud suddenly erupted in an urban area in Java, Indonesia, in May 2006. Nine years of continuous eruption have displaced 39,700 people and cost over US$2.7 billion in damages and disaster management. Intense debate has focused on whether the eruption was naturally triggered by the Yogyakarta earthquake, which occurred two days prior to the eruption and 260 km away1,2, or was the result of gas drilling operations in the nearby Banjar Panji-1 (BJP-1) well3,4. Here we use subsurface gas measurements from the well before and immediately after the Yogyakarta earthquake to demonstrate that an earthquake trigger is unlikely.

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Figure 1: Stratigraphy, BJP-1 borehole design (protective casing diameters in inches) and measured gas amounts encountered by the well7,8.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Istadi for providing data access, and D. Dewhurst and W. Evans for comments. The US-based authors are supported by the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 5005, Australia

    M. R. P. Tingay

  2. Department of Geology, Portland State University, Portland, 97207, Oregon, USA

    M. L. Rudolph

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    M. Manga & Chi-Yuen Wang

  4. School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK

    R. J. Davies

Authors
  1. M. R. P. Tingay
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  2. M. L. Rudolph
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  3. M. Manga
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  4. R. J. Davies
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  5. Chi-Yuen Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. R. P. Tingay.

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Tingay, M., Rudolph, M., Manga, M. et al. Initiation of the Lusi mudflow disaster. Nature Geosci 8, 493–494 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2472

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