And a very large part of East Java is a very large mud volcano. Where your can find small mud volcanoes in the houses of its residents – sometimes it’s enough just to look into a cupboard… Which is quite natural considering the huge masses of land just soaking with water that were drawn down by subduction for thousands of years.



This story has begun a little over two years ago – on May 29, 2006 – two days after a strong quake at Central Java. The latter has greatly complicated the study of causes of the eruption two days later: whether it was a natural calamity, a consequence of breaking the drilling norms or a combination of both.
(The details of the arguments in this regard see in the end of this story).
In short, a local court has ruled that LUSI is a natural calamity and I have no intention to speculate whether it was something else – although it started near a well drilled by P.T. Lapindo Brantas – a company controlled by the family of the richest man in Indonesia (according to a recent Forbes Asia assessment) and Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie.


The opinion by Dr. Grigorii G. Akhmanov form UNESCO/MSU Centre for Marine Geology, Department of Petroleum Geology, Faculty of Geology, Moscow State University see in the article below…


In August the mud has breached the hastily erected five-meter dam…


In October the authorities have started to pump the mud into the b=nearby river of Porong which carries it into the sea.


Many attempts at sealing LUSI – including dropping hundreds oh huge concrete balls into it – turned out to be in vain. Meanwhile a recent study by geologists from Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia has found the mud volcano is collapsing and could subside to depths of over 140 metres.


The layer of mud is already more than 15 meter deep and it is contained only by a growing system of dams.


But it seems that mud volcanoes may also be useful. According to a recent article in Nature by scientists at German and French institutes, rare microbes living around mud volcanoes on the seabed are helping to offset global warming by munching heat-trapping methane seeping from the depths


The microbes, studied at a mud volcano on the floor of the Arctic Barents Sea between Greenland and Norway, could also hold “are helping to control climate change," theу believe.
And – maybe – these microbes may suggest some industrial clues about how to convert methane into more easily used fuels…


Now here’s an article I have written on different approaches to studying LUSI some time ago: 

FIELD STUDIES VS. "INTERNET GEOLOGY"
Two articles on Sidoardjo mud volcano published by The Jakarta Post quite recently ('Mudflow, bird flu pose dilemma for media' by Mr. Sirikit Syah in Surabaya, February 9 and 'A flood of bad news for honest Aburizal Bakrie Bakrie' by Mr. Kornelius Purba in Jakarta, February 10) represent two different views on two different aspects of LUSI mudflow: its causes and its coverage in Indonesian and international media. Such a discussion is long overdue, so it's a pity many aspects were left out in these two articles. But, of course, it was plain impossible to mention everything there.
Still, more reason to do it here. Especially after the International Workshop on Sidoarjo Mud Volcano held in Jakarta on February 20-21.
To call a spade a spade, the main point under discussion in Indonesia is as follows: is a company partially owned by a Cabinet minister's family automatically guilty of everything that happened during its drilling for gas? Or it is still necessary to prove its fault first. And would it suffice as a "proof" just to refer to a study "proposing" it's guilty?
"In every newsroom, - Mr. Sirikit writes, - it was politically incorrect to refer to the mudflow as a "mud volcano" or "natural disaster". The only politically correct attitude was to blame PT Lapindo. PT Lapindo was denied its right to reply".
So it's quite natural – and politically correct - for Mr. Purba to believe that "very few people accept his [Coordinationg Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie] claim that the mud volcano was "purely a natural disaster".


What's really interesting here is that a writer close to Sidoarjo – i.e. the place the disaster is still happening - writes that media "could not even talk about the mudflow objectively and fairly". And a writer in Jakarta – i.e. the place where politics happen - concentrates mostly on what "many experts say" and who to believe.
The former is clearly still not sure about what was the cause of the disaster. But farther from Sidoarjo and closer to Jakarta the picture gets clearer.
Let's make the next step to see more closely who are the experts, mentioned by Mr. Purba, and how far from Sidoarjo they are…
Indonesian and world media has recently provided a lot of coverage to a study by a team led by Richard Davies, a professor at the University of Durham's Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems in northeastern England. This study "Birth of a mud volcano: East Java, 29 May 2006" was published in the February issue of GSA Today, a journal of the Geological Society of America. Actually, this fact is an alarm bell in itself: why British magazines did not print it? Of course, it might have been just a coincidence, but it is still a reason to be more careful when reporting on it…
There's nothing wrong in studying a mud volcano in Indonesia from Durham, UK – after collecting necessary data. There's nothing wrong in reporting on such a study - after reading it through. But it seems that in this case both preconditions were not met.
One necessarily comes to such a conclusion because after really studying this 'study' some purely logical questions are just unavoidable, but nobody has bothered to ask them.
Although I'm not an expert in geology (an expert opinion would follow below) – quite often plain logic and careful reading would suffice.
First, one news agency in a story quite emphatically titled "Mud volcano 'caused by drilling'" writes that "the British experts analysed satellite images of the area to make their study". That proves the author of the story hasn't read the study. At all. Otherwise he would not have helped noticing the date the images were taken: "about 100 days after the eruption started". Can anybody explain me how an image taken (from space!) over three months after(!) an eruption can determine the reason of what has happened almost three thousand meters below the surface "about 100 days" before?
Besides, the study never said that "Mud volcano (was) 'caused by drilling'". It says, "it is very likely". A sea of difference…
The authors write: "It is reported by local villages that the water-mud mix on the surface had a temperature of 70-100 °C". Reported by whom? No reference. "Local villagers"? At the site of drilling? Running around with thermometers during the first days of the eruption? I wonder, what are their names… And I have certain difficulties believing they reported directly to Dr. R. Davies in Durham…
In Russia we call such "reports" OWS news agency. "One Woman Said…"
This is exactly the main problem of the study: not only its authors have not been within a thousand kilometer of LUSI, but they are also not using any reliable data on it! Their reference list doesn't show a single source even distantly related to LUSI. Two lonely references to Java were published in 1995 and 1985! Still, the authors are sure that "Lusi eruption supports the models proposed by these authors". Can they really be called fully objective observes after that?
During our meeting in Jakarta Dr. R. Davies (who was taking part in the seminar) insisted that the study by his team was based on "reliable" but "confidential" data. So confidential, that it just couldn't be mentioned in the reference.
He believes that criticism regarding the study has at least some ground, as the team was in a hurry to publish it as soon as possible. In such a hurry, that Dr. Davies didn't even request the data from P.T.Lapindo - and he quite willingly acknowledges it.
You know what? I just don't know how they do it in Durham, but in Moscow State University I have graduated from they would not have even agreed to begin discussing a graduate thesis based on "confidential data" that can not be referred to…
Let me introduce another expert who has been to LUSI and doesn't have his own previously published theories on mud volcanoes to prove. Dr. Grigorii G. Akhmanov form UNESCO/MSU Centre for Marine Geology, Department of Petroleum Geology, Faculty of Geology, Moscow State University (by the way, he was also taking part in the seminar in Jakarta). Hope, nobody believes Russia has any stake at LUSI so we may skip 'political correctness'.
Here is Dr. Akhmanov's comment upon the study published in GSA Today:
"It is clear for any reader that the authors have absolutely no data and nothing to discuss, except, maybe, their own ideas. A couple of nice-looking illustrations from their previous studies, not related to LUSI, and enviable pen craft provide the authors a good opportunity to refer to themselves. But their "study" adds nothing to the understanding of LUSI.
LUSI phenomenon is naturally prepared. You don’t have to be a geologist to understand it, looking at the power and scale of its manifestation. Pretty little geological knowledge is needed to realize that East Java basin is extremely favourable for LUSI-like things. The existence of old mud volcanoes within 20 km distance from LUSI illustrates that even for amateurs. Unfortunately, the authors do not know about Gunung Anyar, Kalang Anyar, Pulungan mud volcanoes located near LUSI. I guess, they were not mentioned in Internet reports on the eruption.
What triggered the whole thing is still a big question. If the company can be blamed, it is for triggering but not for causing. It is important to distinguish between these two words.
I don’t believe we will ever be able to reconstruct precisely what has happened then and there at several thousand meters depth. But most scientists knowing active tectonic setting of the region would name a number of other possible natural triggering scenarios besides a drilling accident.
Meanwhile, Dr. Davies' model explains how the last phase of drilling could initiate a propagating fracture to the surface only. His following explanation, why tectonic or hydraulic fracturing at the depth (let’s say, at the same interval as for drilling triggered model) can not allow same processes, is very questionable - to put it mildly. Probably, again because of lack of on-spot data.
And finally, if there is a reason to blame the company (and now we really can only blame it for drilling in a potentially dangerous place), I would recommend to stop immediately any exploration of all East Java basin where LUSI-like things apt to happen any place, any time (like they say it in tourist warnings). And even this will not protect the area 100% from mud volcanic activity. It is there already, as I have mentioned above.
From scientific point of view there is no doubt that LUSI is a unique opportunity to study eruption dynamics and the mechanisms triggering mud volcanism phenomena. This is the reason why we organized an extensive fieldwork in September 2006 that included mapping and sample collection and work with previously obtained geological data. This is why we completed analysis and spent time to interpret our results within a regional geological context. This is how science is done, without prejudice".
But Dr. Davies and his team prefer quite different and really innovative "scientific" approach: there is no need to do fieldwork or analysis of that dull on-spot data any more. All one needs is an Internet connection to surf from a press release to a story on local villagers measuring temperature of the mud. It’s an easy way to become famous - and fast. Especially when the conclusion is quite coincidentally "politically correct".


Now back to the coverage. It seems that it is already a tradition for some Indonesian press to reprint stories by leading news agencies without reading them first. For example, this is the only explanation for the dubious pleasure of reading reprints of a story by one these agencies stating that Magellan came to Philippines after visiting Spice Islands. Because anybody at Ternate would tell you that Magellan's expedition arrived there without its leader – who was already killed by that time by Datu Lapu-Lapu in the battle of Maktan.
I'm mentioning it here as it vividly demonstrates how logic can quite frequently be of help. There is no need even to look at a map (any map!) of Magellan's circumnavigation. It is enough to recall that its target was to find a way to Spice Islands from the East – as from the West it was already blocked by the Portuguese. So it was plain impossible for Magellan to get to Ternate before Philippines…
Meanwhile Dr. Davies believes, that what he has heard in Jakarta confirms he and his team were right.
H-m-m… Let me quote only one title of only one paper presented (in English, as Dr. Davies probably couldn't understand the report presented in Bahasa Indonesia by an Indonesian geologists' team specially created to monitor LUSI, stating that "up to now we still don't know the reason"): "Earthquake, the Major Trigger of Mud Vulcanism at Sidoarjo" by two Japanese experts.
Summing up: the farther from the spot, the clearer the picture of what has happened. And the later is also the better. Or so it seems, as the best picture is received from space a hundred days after…
"The more we study, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we know. The more we know, the more we forget. The more we forget, the less we know. So why study?"
And to hell with sources! To hell with facts! Who needs them at the age of Internet?
Or maybe it is still the duty of a reporter to check and double-check the things he's reporting about? Or at least to read them carefully and from beginning to end?
My conclusion may seem to some akin to blasphemy: what is "politically correct" may be true merely by a coincidence. And even then for a time being only. Simply because policies tend to change thus changing what is "politically correct". But the truth is – or, at least, should be, - permanent. That is why it is called the truth – as opposite to a lie.