Mount Tambora is a large stratovolcano located on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia. It lies approximately 210 miles north of the Java Trench and is flanked to the north and south by oceanic crust. Its current summit elevation is approximately 9,350 feet (Smithsonian Institute). To the southeast of the volcano is the Sanggar Peninsula, which is part of Tambora. There are two towns, Dompu and Clima, and three concentrations of villages near the mountain slope: Sanggar, Doro Peti and Pesanggrahan, and Calabai.Figure 1. Map of Mount Tambora and SumbawaMount Tambora is best known for the he eruption occurred in April 1815. The eruption was so large that it ranked 7 out of 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index scale. The number of deaths from the eruption alone was estimated at 11,000, with an additional 49,000 deaths from famine and post-eruption epidemic diseases (Tanguy, Ribiere, Scarth, & Tjetjep, 1998). A more recent estimate puts the total number of deaths at 71,000 (Oppenheimer, 2003). So, what events led to this violent eruption? A scientist used qualitative and quantitative data to reconstruct a timeline. Three years before April 1815, the volcano began to rumble and generate a dark cloud around the summit. Then, in the early evening of April 5, 1815, a moderate-sized eruption occurred. The detonations sounded like cannon discharges and could be heard as far away as Ternate, 1,400 km away (Stothers, 1984). A man named Sir Stamford Raffles heard these noises and wrote: "The first explosions were heard on this island on the evening of April 5th, they were noticed in all quarters and continued at intervals until the next day . The noise was, at first, almost universally attributed...... middle of article ......no.cfm?vnum=0604-04=Stothers, R. (1984, June 15). The great eruption of Tambora in 1815 and its consequences. Retrieved May 3, 2011 from Academic OneFile: http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.apsu.edu/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=AONE&docId=A3309276&source=gale&srcprod= AONE&userGroupName =tel_a_apsu&version=1.0Tanguy, J.-C., Ribiere, C., Scarth, A. and Tjetjep, W. (1998). Victims of volcanic eruptions: a revised database. Bulletin of Volcanology, 137-144. University of Notre Dame. (2006). tambora explosion.jpg. Retrieved May 3, 2011, from the University of Notre Dame: http://ocw.nd.edu/physics/nuclear-warfare/images-1/tambora-explosion.jpg/viewWickens, S. (2004, May 14). 1816- The year with a summer. Retrieved May 3, 2011 from Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/323747/1816-Eruption-of-Mt-Tambora-The-year-without-summer