Evidence of Major Earthquake Found Beneath Mount Ciremai, Overturned Soil

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - A team from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has revealed surprising findings at the foot of Mount Ciremai in the eastern ring area of Kuningan. They discovered evidence of fault activity in the form of inverted soil layer structures.

The team’s discovery of Quaternary-era tectonic activity (beginning 2.58 million years ago) utilised geochronological analysis and LiDAR mapping of the distal deposits from Mount Ciremai.

The use of LiDAR enabled the team to visualise Earth’s surface features without vegetation obstruction. Additionally, the mapping results could reveal layer inclination (tilting) and faulting in land morphology.

The research team applied carbon dating methodology along the eastern ring corridor of Kuningan. They discovered deposits aged 22,000 years positioned above deposits from 20,000 years ago.

This means older soil layers were pushed to the top of younger layers. Sonny Aribowo, junior researcher at BRIN’s Centre for Geological Disaster Research and head of the research team, explained that the team identified evidence of a balancing phase following major tectonic pressure.

“In addition to reverse faulting, we also found evidence of normal faulting in deposits approximately 16,000 years old, which indicates a sediment balancing phase following major tectonic pressure, or possibly traces of a major earthquake event during that period,” Sonny stated.

From this research, the team also successfully differentiated between distal (distant) and proximal (near) deposits from Mount Ciremai. The distal deposits constitute sub-alkaline basaltic volcanic sediment with high iron content and low silica.

Meanwhile, the proximal deposits were found near the peak, dominated by andesitic-basaltic rock with a medium-K magma series.

However, the relationship between these two deposit types requires further investigation, as distal and proximal deposits exhibit different characteristics.