Verlaten Island (Dutch: "Abandoned", "Deserted" or "Forsaken"; modern Indonesian: Sertung) is a volcanic island. It may have been created in the 535 AD eruption of Krakatoa. It is located in the Sunda Strait in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, between

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

. It is part of the Krakatoa Archipelago, above the famous

Krakatoa Krakatoa (), also transcribed (), is a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a volcanic island group (Krakatoa archipelago) comprising four islands. Tw ...

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

. Other than some minor collapse in the southeast (closest to the main island of Krakatoa), Verlaten suffered little damage in the 1883 eruption. Instead, it grew almost three times in area due to

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of extremely vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicula ...

fall, although most of the gain was quickly eroded away.

Form

Verlaten is a rather low island with a hill in the middle. After the 1883 eruption, Verlaten developed a low spit of land to the northeast with a brackish lake near the end. This lake became a waterfowl haven but has since been breached by wave erosion.

References

Furneaux, Rupert (1964) Krakatoa Krakatoa Islands of the Sunda Strait {{Lampung-geo-stub