Elias Ravian

Elias Ravian (born March 2, 1945 in Tavui No. 1 , † March 8, 1979 in Karkar ) was a Papua New Guinean volcanologist .

He belonged to the Tolai ethnic group and came from a coastal village a few kilometers north of Rabaul in what is now East New Britain Province . Ravian worked at the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory (RVO) from 1970 and was one of several indigenous peoples who were hired as scientific assistants during this time. Among them was for example, Benjamin P. Talai . A new generation of scientists continued the work of the renowned Tony Taylor there from 1972 .

After eruptive activity had been registered on the small volcanic island of Karkar in January 1979 , the RVO sent alternating teams of geologists to observe. Ravian and his Australian colleague Robin JS Cooke reached the island on the evening of March 7th - they were to be relieved on March 11th or 12th. Three phreatic explosions occurred during the night . When the duo did not answer via their radio receiver as agreed in the morning, a search party was organized. Both bodies were found in the RVO camp, buried under a layer of ash almost 15 centimeters thick. The area also were volcanic bombs descended of up to one meter in diameter. The bodies were transported to Rabaul by helicopter. Ravian received a funeral in his home village. A memorial stone was erected in Rabaul in honor of the two geologists.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Obituary for Cooke and Ravian . Retrieved from volcano.si.edu (“Global Volcanism Program” of the Smithsonian Institution ) on March 12, 2015.
2. ^ Johnson, Robert Wallace: Fire mountains of the islands. A history of volcanic eruptions and disaster management in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands . Canberra (2013), 249.