Api berwarna biru tersebut adalah api yang tercipta dari semburat belerang

cair dari dalam kawah. Panasnya kawah yang berpadu dengan belerang menciptakan
efek api berwarna biru di permukaan. Fenomena indah blue fire ini mengalahkan
matahari terbit dan terbenam di kawah biru itu. Danau Kawah Ijen
merupakan reaktor multi komponen yang di dalamnya terjadi proses baik fisika
maupun kimia. Di antaranya terjadi proses pelepasan gas magmatik, pelarutan
batuan, pengendapan, pembentukan material baru, dan pelarutan kembali zat-zat
yang terbentuk sehingga menghasilkan air danau yang sangat asam dan
mengandung bahan terlarut dengan konsentrasi yang sangat tinggi.
Sedang belerang dihasilkan dari suplimasi gas-gas belerang yang terdapat
dalam asap zolfatara yang bersuhu sekitar 200 derajat celcius, dengan kapasitas
belerang 8 ton per hari.

ver the past month, the web has come alive with French photographer Olivier
Grunewald’s spectacular photos of Indonesia’s Kawah Ijen volcano. Snapped during
shooting of a new documentary he’s releasing with the president of Geneva’s
Society for Volcanology, Régis Etienne, the photos—taken without the aid of any
filter or digital enhancement—showcase the volcano’s amazing electric blue glow.

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Little of the web coverage, though, has enlightened readers on the scientific
principles at work. “This blue glow, unusual for a volcano, isn’t the lava itself, as
unfortunately can be read on many websites,” Grunewald says. “It is due to the
combustion of sulfuric gases in contact with air at temperatures above 360°C.”

In other words, the lava—molten rock that emerges from the Earth at ultra-high
temperatures—isn’t colored significantly differently than the lava at other volcanoes,
which all differ slightly based on their mineral composition but appear a bright red or
orange color in their molten state. But at Kawah Ijen, extremely high quantities of
sulfuric gases emerge at high pressures and temperatures (sometimes in excess
of 600°C) along with the lava.

Exposed to the oxygen present in air and sparked by lava, the sulfur burns readily,
and its flames are bright blue. There’s so much sulfur, Grunewald says, that at times
it flows down the rock face as it burns, making it seem as though blue lava is spilling
down the mountainside. But because only the flames are blue, rather than the lava
itself, the effect is only visible at night—during daytime, the volcano looks like
roughly any other.
“The vision of these flames at night is strange and extraordinary,” Grunewald says.
“After several nights in the crater, we felt really living on another planet.”

Grunewald first heard about the phenomenon from Etienne, who visited the volcano
in 2008 with an Indonesian guide. After being shown Etienne’s photo featuring a
child miner’s silhouette surrounded by the blue glow, he was struck by the idea of
photographing the mountain’s sulfur miners working at night.

These miners extract sulfuric rock—formed after the blue flames have gone out and
the sulfur gas has cooled and combined with the lava to form solidified rock—for use
in the food and chemical industries. “To double their meager income, the hardiest of
these men work nights, by the electric blue light of the sulfuric acid exhaled by the
volcano,” Grunewald says. Some of the workers are children, seeking to support
their families by any means possible.

They carry rock-filled baskets by hand down the mountain, selling it for about
680 Indonesian rupiahs per kilogram, the equivalent of about six cents. In a country
where the median daily income is about $13, many work overnight to supplement
their income. Grunewald estimates that these nighttime miners can mine and carry
between 80 to 100 kilos over the course of twelve hours of work—about $5 to $6.

Grunewald and Etienne produced the documentary partly to bring attention to these
harsh working conditions. Most of the miners do not have gas masks (which the
photographers wore throughout shooting and distributed to miners afterward), and
suffer from health problems due to prolonged exposure to sulfur dioxide and other
toxic gases.

Shooting these striking photos—some taken just a few feet away from the flames—
was far more physically demanding than most of Grunewald’s previous projects of
landscapes and wildlife. “The main problem was the acidic gases that whirled
constantly in the crater,” he says. “The night seriously increased the difficulty as well,
because it became almost impossible to see when dense gases arrived—at times,
we were stuck in gas plumes for over an hour without being able to see our hands.”

Just 30 nights in the crater, distributed over six trips, were enough to show
Grunewald how destructive the environment of these mines can be. “During my first
trip, I lost a camera and two lenses that had been corroded by acid,” he says. “After
we got back home, it took up to three weeks for our skin to lose the smell of sulfur.”

His photos make the blue flames appear dramatically beautiful, even surreal. But for
the miners that spend months or years at the volcano, the sulfur dioxide is quite real,
and the health effects of chronic exposure—throat and lung irritation, difficulty
breathing and a propensity for lung disease—can be devastating.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-does-indonesian-

volcano-burn-bright-blue-180949576/#myAq6YIGTmSeXlJg.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
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Api biru di kawah ijen juga membuat penasaran para ilmuwan di dunia,
pertanyaan mengapa kawah tersebut bisa memunculkan api berwarna biru menjadi
pertanyaan yang lumrah. Kawan juga pasti bertanya-tanya mengapa hal itu bisa
terjadi. Nah sebuah majalah museum terkenal di dunia Smithsonian Magazine
ternyata telah membuat ulasannya. Berikut adalah jawaban dari pertanyaan
mengapa api di Kawah Ijen berwarna biru.
Pada umumnya setiap gunung api mengeluarkan gas sulfur atau lebih umum
dikenal sebagai belerang yang berinteraksi dengan udara pada suhu mencapai 360
derajat Celsius. Umumnya warna pendaran dari gunung adalah berwarna merah
atau oranye akibat lava dari perut bumi. Namun pendaran warna di Kawah Ijen
bukan diakibatkan oleh lava panas melainkan akibat gas belerang dengan kuantitas
yang tinggi dengan tekanan dan suhu yang juga tinggi (mencapai 600 derajat
Celsius).
Oksigen yang ada di udara kemudian terpantik oleh panas lava sehingga
belerang akan langsung terbakar dan menghasilkan warna berwarna biru. Belerang
yang terbakar di Kawah Ijen muncul dalam jumlah yang tinggi dan mengalir melalui
bebatuan terlihat seperti lava berwarna biru. Namun karena warna apinya biru dan
api itu bukan dari lava, membuat api biru hanya terlihat di malam hari. Di siang hari,
api yang berekasi karena belerang ini akan berwarna kekuning-kuningan.