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Krakatau Journal: An island paradise that can kill you {Gadling}
Oct 31st 2008 2:49AM Another comment - on the main article this time. Indonesia was a Dutch colony, not a British one, so it was not "popularized as Krakatoa by the British colonialists" . The island was called "Cracatao" in the "Secret Atlas" of the Dutch East India Company in 1753. By 1883 it was known to the Dutch rulers as Krakatau, but by this time it was on the UK Admiralty Charts as "Krakatoa" hence the mistake when the telegraphs reached London. Check the maps on the website of the National Library of Australia
Krakatau Journal: An island paradise that can kill you {Gadling}
Oct 31st 2008 2:39AM Actually according to David Pyle's entry in Haraldur Sigurdsson's Encyclopedia of Volcanoes (Academic Press, 2000) the mass ejected was the same at 3 x 10 to the 13th kg - and anyway all these are estimates. Novarupta killed 2 people, Krakatau 36,714. Novarupta was too far north for the ash plume to affect more than the extreme northern hemisphere - Krakatau being tropical produced a plume covering the whole planet, coloured the sunsets for three years, and reduced the GMST by 0.5degC. Also Krakatau is documented as the greatest sound in recorded history, was heard over 3000 miles away, the shock wave went around the world seven times and affected tide gauges even as far away as the UK (separation 150 degrees of longitude and 56 degrees of latitude). I don't think Novarupta was in the same class.
