The Mud Volcano Lusi Poem by Marieta Maglas

The world's largest mud dome called the mud volcano is located
In Sidoarjo, a regency in Indonesia. It is very active.
It had erupted also on twenty-nine Mays, only five years ago.
Now, it gushes forty Olympic pools each day being very massive.

A mud dome emits helium, nitrogen, usually belches of flammable gas
Through a deepening lake of hydrocarbon fluids, acid water, and sludge.
The temperature is as low as the freezing point for its fast-moving mass
It's associated with petroleum deposits looking like dark brown smudges.

The creeks transport amounts of sediment to rivers which flow into the ocean.
This time the Indonesian volcano displaced thirteen thousand families.
To save their lives, they had to leave their home being forced to run.
They needed to escape because the volcano showed increased activity.

This volcano eruption will drop to a manageable level in twenty-six years,
And Lusi will continue to gush gray mud until it will turn into a bubbling volcano.
The processes of erosion will begin to bevel the mountain but the tears
Do not stop for those who were killed after Lusi erupted five years ago.

All these years the volcano Lusi, situated in Sidoarjo regency, East Java
Can become highly destructive or sweep up almost everything
Even if it is likely to gush gray cold or hot mud instead of the usual lava,
Thousands of people living there can die or leave without saving anything.

Lusi's staying power and its lake of mud have smothered twelve villages
To an incredible depth of up to fifty feet and just in the middle of this new lake
There is one hundred and sixty-four feet of real vent. It is not a mirage.
This time, it wasn't even mentioned that Yogyakarta was struck by a different nearby earthquake.

The cause of the volcanic eruption which occurred five years ago was debatable.
Maybe an earthquake caused it, or maybe it was due to drilling a well in the zone.
The Indonesian government blamed the eruption on an earthquake which is contestable
Foreign experts said Lapindo Brantas didn't use the protective casing for its section.

Mud and gas accumulate when sea sediments are trapped in subduction zones.
The mud eruption is a hybrid between typical mud volcanoes and hydrothermal vents.
So, one tectonic plate slides under another, and can erupt out of volcanic cones
From a crack in the ground and this way, mud volcanoes have burst on all continents.

Sixty-six years ago an earthquake in Pakistan generated a tsunami very destructive
And caused the eruption of a mud volcano on the Makran Coast, in the Sindh region,
Which formed four islands, and everyone could see its gas flames while it was active
And could know about petroleum deposits, methane, ethane, and other hydrocarbons.

Poem by Marieta Maglas