After nearly 200 years of rest, Mount Tambora is rumbling again and spewing ash. The last eruption of Mount Tambora was in 1815 and at the time was the largest eruption in the world since 180 AD. The massive amount of volcanic ash kicked into the stratosphere (around 160 cubic kilometers of ejecta were released) cooled Earth's temperature by over a degree Fahrenheit and caused "The year without a summer". In comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens released around 1 cubic kilometer of ejecta.
posted by chakalakasp on Sep 19, 2011 - 48 comments

The Lost Kingdom of Tambora, Pompeii of the East, was recently uncovered by an oceanographic team from the University of Rhode Island and Indonesian researchers. The kingdom was buried when Mount Tambora violently erupted in 1815, and set the conditions for 1816, the Year Without Summer. It was not the first, or last time, that a volcano eruption affected the world.
posted by Atreides on Feb 28, 2006 - 15 comments