The Garbuna Group of

volcanoes 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 often fo ...

consists of three volcanic peaks, Krummel, Garbuna, and Welcker, atop a

shield volcano A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more viscous lava ...

. They are located at the southern end of the Willaumez Peninsula, just to the west of the town of Kimbe, in

West New Britain Province West New Britain is a province of Papua New Guinea on the islands of New Britain. The provincial capital is Kimbe. The area of the province is 20,387 km2 with a population of 264,264 as of the 2011 census. The province's only land border is ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Garbuna contains a large thermal field, probably Papua New Guinea's largest. Until recently, it was assumed that the Garbuna volcano was probably dormant, or perhaps extinct. The last eruption was believed to have occurred around 1300 AD, or 700 years ago. Evidence from past eruptions indicates large amounts of tephra and lava were produced. However, on 17 October 2005 the Garbuna volcano erupted without warning. Ash was reported 4,000 m above the summit. An ash warning for aircraft was distributed by the Darwin office of the Australian

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Government of Australia, Australian Government that is responsible for providing Weather forecasting, weather forecasts and Meteorology, meteorological services to Australia a ...

on 19 October, by which time a second new vent had appeared. Ash was apparently drifting to the north-west on 19 October and had contaminated some village water supplie

Eruptions continued into November 2005, although less violently. By January 2006, the main activity was limited to volumes of white vapour being discharged from the new vents. Garbuna is less than 20 km to the west of Kimbe, the main urban centre of West New Britain and the location of an important

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...

industry. In August 2002, the Pago volcano to the east of Kimbe erupted and caused 12,000 people to seek refuge in care centres. The Hoskins Airport was closed for some time due to ash falls. This volcano was previously active in 1990.

References

* Volcanoes of New Britain Active volcanoes Stratovolcanoes of Papua New Guinea {{PapuaNewGuinea-geo-stub

See also

References