Lombok is one of the “Lesser Sunda Islands”.
There are two geologically different groups of islands on the “Lesser Sunda Islands”. The northern group, which includes Lombok, is of volcanic origin. Some of the volcanoes, such as Rinjani on Lombok, are still active. The northern Archipelago began to form during the Pliocene, about 15 million years ago, as a result of the collision between the Australian and Eurasian plates.
This so-called subduction zone is characterized by frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
According to the latest research, the eruption of “Samala” in the Rinjani volcanic complex in 1257 is responsible for the subsequent years being marked by crop failures and famine around the world. The height of the smoke column of this mega-eruption is estimated at 43 km and the ejected volume at 100 cubic kilometers of fragmented material.
Probably no other volcanic eruption in the last 2,000 years weakened the sun's radiation through sulfur dioxide emissions. It is assumed that this and some subsequent eruptions contributed through feedback effects to a cooler episode in the Northern Hemisphere in the long term, the so-called “Little Ice Age”.
According to a reconstruction from tree ring data, the year 1259 was the third coldest in the last 1,000 years. This is also proven by drill core analyzes on Greenland and Antarctica.
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