Geography & Geology

Conspiration among British, Dutch, Spanish and Portugese, in the beginning of the 16th age, has been committed to devide their colonial occupations into regions based on similar ethnic origin. Such as Malaynese occupying Malacca, Singapore and Northen Borneo for British; Tagalog in the Philippins for Spanish, East Timor for Portugese and Netherland East Indies for Dutch. Each of their population have been agreed that those boundary commitment could be considered as 'nation in status nascendi' for the future.

Netherland East Indies which later on called Indonesia, the name was firstly introduced by George Windsor Earl, a British Navy Officer ( Singapore) in 1850 consisting of :

• Greater Sunda* Islands nl. Sumatera, Java, Borneo/Kalimantan (excluded Sabah, Serawak and Brunai in the North), Celebes/Sulawesi each with all the small surrounded islands



• Lesser Sunda* Islands nl Bali, Lombok, Sumba, Sumbawa, Flores, West Timor each with the small surrounded islands



• Mollucas Islands and the small surrounded islands



• West New Guinea/West Irian/Papua and the small surrounded islands

*The term 'Greater and Lesser Sunda' ( Sunda an ethnic occupying West Java) is no more used after 1945. Only ' Straits Sunda' is still used till now !

The total islands included were 13,667, that time 56 %(7,653 islands) without any names yet and only 7% (957 islands) were populated.

Those were occupying area between 6 degrees N and11 degrees S; between 95 degrees E and 141 degrees E. Consisting 1,9 million Sq.Km of land and 7,9 Sq Km of seas. Since Sea Areas is 4x Land Areas, the Netherland East Indies is called a Maritiem Region. Lying between 2 continents Asia in the NW, and Australia in the SE. And between Pacific Ocean in the North and Indonesian Ocean in the South.

Currently neighboring closely with Malaysia (NW-Norh), the Philippines (N), East Papua New Guinea(E) and Australia(SE) and also with Democratic Republic of Timor Leste.

Because of its beauty, the Netherland East Indies that time was also called by tourists/visitors : 'the Equatorial Emerald Strings' of the eastern hemisphere !

Tropical climates comprising anually dry season, 6 months in the months of March-August; and rainy season, in the months of September-February. The weather in both seasons is normally mild, the temperature ranges between 22 and 35 degrees C elcius with usually high humidity. A permanent snow is only found on the Cartenz/Jayawijaya's peak in Irian Jaya/Papua at the attitude of 15.000 feet above sea level.

Geologically, Indonesia except Irian Jaya and the surrounding islands, consisting of younger rock formations nl Tertiary and Quarternary of age. Weathering, erosion and denudation, is still occuring causing most rivers have trouble water/brown colored containing different particle sizes from mud till sandy particles.

According to plate tectonics, Indonesia is lying on the collision areas of three (3) crustle plates Eurasia, Pacific and Australia. The movement of those, though very slow in the magnitude of 2 to 5 centimeter per year, affecting tectonics such as folding and faulting or mountain buildings and colcanic activities, also intensive earthquackes sometimes followed by catastrophal tsunami phenomena. Thats why Indonesia is said to be on the ring of fire.

If we look on the map of Indonesia, the Nusa Tenggara Timur/East SE islands had been beautifully bended or curved up due to the Eurasia crustal plate's force coming from the NW direction was heavily resisted by the massive Australian plate and West Irian/Papua lying on the SE and E. Such massive resistant could be traced beginning from the west coast of Aceh-Sumatera, South Coast of Java, South Coast Nusatenggara Barat/West SE islands. Along the northen side of this resintant line, the affecting magmatic movement beneath could reach the crust in many places, forming volcanic belt on the islands stated above.

On the other hands, thanks to God, the collision of crustal plates followed by the phenomena of folding and faulting in the process of mountain bulding, resulting the formation of geosynclines inwhich later on filled up by valuable fossil deposits such as coal; and anticlines, faulted area and wedged out layers of capable rocks for depositing raw oil and gas. The magmatic movement and the ancient volcanic activities along the resistant line, resulted the formation of metalogenic belts containing important and valuable metals and minerals, either primary or secondary deposits.

Last but not least, volcanic activities producing lavas and dust containing sulfur, potassium, sodium and other elements, very useful to make the ground soil becoming more fertile for cultivation purposes and with beautiful green panorama of peneplain and blue mountaineous landscapes.
By those reasons Indonesia becoming a beautiful and a rich country. Open and available for the building of tourism industry, fishery industry, agricultural industry and agrobisiness, wood industry, mining & mineral industry and oil & gas industry. Those, however, need a solid investment capital and hightechnology and should be handled and managed by honest professional, skillful and hardwork/energitic human resources.