Earth fire
Earthfires or earth fires are fires that occur when deposits of combustible material ignite . It is typical for earth fires that the limiting factor is not the amount of fuel, as is the case with other known forms of large-scale fires, but the available oxygen . It is therefore often smoldering fires .
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Fires in coal seams are called coal fires or seam fires . More generally, fires that occur during or in connection with the dismantling of deposits are referred to as mine fires or mine fires . When it comes to deposits of crude oil or natural gas , one speaks of oil fires or borehole fires . A well-known example is the Derweze crater in Turkmenistan , which has been burning since 1971 .
However, earth fires can also occur through spontaneous combustion completely independent of human mining and under certain circumstances burn for decades and centuries. A well-known example from Germany is the Planitz earth fire , which started through spontaneous combustion in 1476 and was not extinguished until 1490. Another is the so-called Burning Mountain near Saarbrücken , a coal seam that has been burning for over 200 years and that impressed the mountain ridge and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who came here in 1770 : ... thick steam rose from the cliffs and you could feel the heat of the ground through the strong soles.
Another form of earth fire is peat fire . In this context, the great peat fires in Indonesia are known , through which enormous amounts of carbon dioxide enter the atmosphere and intensify the greenhouse effect. In 1997/1998, the fires covered ten million hectares and enveloped Indonesia and parts of Southeast Asia in dark smoke for ten months.
Earthfires and places of worship
In ancient times, earth fires were often associated with places of worship, mostly cults of chthonic deities . A famous example is Olympos in Lycia, Asia Minor, with the cult of Hephaestus , near the mountain Chimaira with its natural gas deposits that are still burning today.
In Arcadia , according to Pausanias , between Trapezous and Basilis there was a place called Bathos ("deep", "abyss"), a ravine in which an earth fire was burning. The mysteries of the Great Goddesses are celebrated in this gorge every two years.
Another example of a place of worship with a Hindu - Zoroastrian background is the Baku Fire Temple , in which an eternal flame burned by a natural gas deposit .
Earthfires as a topic in literature
Earthfires have repeatedly been a topic in recent (German-language) literature, for example in Dorothee Elmiger's 2010 debut novel Invitation to the Daring , where the blurb already says: “A fire broke out decades ago in the tunnel of a coal mining area - and is still blazing underground the flames. "Even in the novel xo of Francis Nenik a Erdbrand plays a central role. The earth fire is described here on the one hand as an angry underground force, but at the same time its utilization above the earth (e.g. plant houses that are built on the warm ground) is demonstrated.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Goethe: Poetry and Truth. Second part. Tenth book. 1812. In: Hamburger Ausgabe 1948ff, Vol. 9, p. 420. “Klunse” is an ancient word for “column”.
- ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 8.29.1
- ↑ Dorothee Elmiger: Invitation to the daring (novel) ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Francis Nenik: xo (novel)
