Dukono
— — a mountain that has been smoking since 1933.
Not only on a wall.
“An active stratovolcano on the northern arm of Halmahera, about fifteen kilometres west of the town of Tobelo. Dukono has been in continuous mild eruption since August 1933, one of the longest sustained eruptions on record. The summit holds a complex of overlapping craters; a thin column of ash drifts most days. The slopes climb out of equatorial rainforest into bare grey scree before the rim. — from the studio
Dukono, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Dukono is a stratovolcano in the north of Halmahera, the largest island of Indonesia's Maluku group. The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program places the summit at 1,229 metres, with a complex of overlapping craters on the broad upper cone. It sits about fifteen kilometres west of Tobelo, the largest town in the North Halmahera Regency, and rises straight from sea-level rainforest. The Halmahera arc, where the Philippine, Eurasian, and Australian plates meet, has produced one of the densest concentrations of active volcanoes anywhere on earth.
Dukono has been in near-continuous eruption since 13 August 1933, one of the longest sustained eruptions in the historical record. Daily activity is usually a thin ash plume rising from a few hundred to a few thousand metres from the active Malupang Warirang vent. The Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre issues regular notices for aviation across the eastern Indonesian flight corridors. On quiet days the column drifts north or west toward the sea; on more active days, light ashfall reaches villages on the eastern slopes.
The standard ascent starts from Mamuya village, north-west of Tobelo, with a guide arranged through the local PVMBG (Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation) post. The climb is about twelve kilometres each way through rainforest and grass slopes, usually undertaken overnight to reach the crater rim near dawn. The Indonesian alert level has hovered at Level II (Waspada) for most of the last decade, which keeps a two-kilometre exclusion zone in force around the active vent. The full circuit takes most parties between fourteen and eighteen hours.