It’s Volcano Week 3 here at GSS, which explains why all of our posts over the course of the week are very likely to be volcano related.

Mount Tambora is an active volcano on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, which is noted for the largest and deadliest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

The eruption occurred in 1815, and could allegedly be heard from over 2000 km away. Lasting 5 days, the volcanic activity removed 1500 m of the volcano’s height, sent 2.5 million tons of ash into the air, and left a 7 km wide caldera behind.

The massive amount of extra dust in the atmosphere actually caused the temperature to fall worldwide, and 1816 became known as the Year Without a Summer, when crops and livestock died in much of the northern hemisphere – resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century.

Some 10,000 people are thought to have died directly as a result of the eruption, but factoring in the related famine and disease brings the total to at least 71,000 deaths.

You can read more about Mount Tambora and the Volcanic Explosivity Index on Wikipedia.

Thanks to Tim, Paul Drye, and Pedro Cristian.

In 1998, the tiny truck-stop village of Ilakaka in Madagascar was transformed into a bustling mining town, and one of the most dangerous places in the country. The reason for this dramatic change was the discovery of massive sapphire deposits in the valley.

Browsing the area from above you can see thousands of small mine holes randomly peppered across the landscape. With no official control on the mining the holes are often dug by just one or two people hoping to make a quick fortune from the sapphires in the sand deep below.

As word of the town’s riches spread, larger organisations moved in and you can spot the larger pits by the stepped sand walls. It is now estimated that 50% of the world’s sapphires come from this one town.

Thanks to The Big Picture which have their usual fantastic collection of photos.

Last week was our our third annual Island Week, and we had another fascinating week! This year even more of you than ever sent in brilliant islands for us, most of which we simply didn’t have time to post.¹ Here’s the full roundup of what we did:

• Paid a visit to the bizarre Moving Island of the Grey Monks.
• Took a day trip to Bruny Island thanks to Street View.
• Walked across the sand to the fascinating tidal island of Lindisfarne.
• Travelled to the most remote island in the world, Tristan da Cunha.
• Examined the remnants of the sunken Island of Jordsand.
• Solved the mystery of the Indonesian Island Monument.

Apparently the guys over at Google enjoyed Island Week too – as they chose today to provide us with a huge collection of brand new imagery – meaning we’ll have lots of new things to see during next year’s Island Week.

Frank at the Google Earth blog is posting an ongoing roundup of the new imagery as it’s discovered, but so far updates have been found in the following countries:

Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Greece and the Greek Islands, Italy, Japan, Laos, Mexico, Phillipines, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, US, Vietnam

Updates are visible in Google Earth only so far, but will be visible in Google Maps within the next few days, whereupon you’ll have no excuse not to be the one who makes the next big Google Earth discovery… Now go! Fame awaits!

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

Here in the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra, Indonesia there is a tiny, seemingly unnamed, almost totally-forested island.

The only thing on this island, other than trees, is a mysterious, lonely white monument. But what is it?

Our mystery island is just to the south of the much larger island of Hilibafunua (about which I have failed to find anything interesting), but north of the even larger Siberut – an island that is home to a 1,905 km² National Park and inhabited by the Mentawai, a tribe of hunter-gatherers who like to sharpen their teeth.

Our mystery monument hasn’t been posted on the Google Earth Forums (it would show up in the Google Earth Community layer in Google Earth if it had), and I can’t find any reference to it on the web, at least not in English.

So, who can tell us what this is, or even better, locate a photograph of it?

Thanks to Smiglo.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

This is what used to be the island of Jordsand in the Wadden Sea, just off the coast of Denmark, and east of the German island of Sylt.

Once upon a time it may have connected to both the mainland and Sylt, but by 1873 it was down to just 18.4 hectares in size. Attempts to protect the island were made during the 1970s but recurring floods continued to reduce its area and, during the winter of 1998, the little island was finally submerged for good.

Interestingly, the low resolution image used on Google Maps for the more zoomed-out views still shows some small sections of land protruding from the water.

Thanks to Lars Dybdahl.