Account from The Geology of Indonesia (1949) — Kr. Rigaih
The 1922 Jansen-Lindberg-Wolvekamp observation
The 1922 report of Jansen, Lindberg and Wolvekamp, as reproduced by Van Bemmelen, records:
“Locality: resp. 88 and 78 km NW of Meulaboh. The deposits consist of scattered fragments of ore, formed at the contact of eruptive rock (dikes) and sediments. Locally garnet has been observed.”
The Kr. Rigaih and Alu Talu localities are, in contrast to the more substantial Kr. Ligan (Babah Loh) deposit (700 m length, 8–17 m thickness), described only as “scattered fragments of ore” at the contact of eruptive dikes and sediments. The presence of garnet, however, confirms the contact-metamorphic origin — the same geological model that applies to all the documented Atjeh iron-ore occurrences. The modest size of the Kr. Rigaih and Alu Talu occurrences places them in the same category as the Kwala Boe and Tjot Plaj bog-iron localities further south: occurrences that were recorded by the colonial geological survey but that were too small to support any industrial exploitation.
Significance
Kr. Rigaih is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because it is one of the four West-Atjeh iron-ore localities recorded in the colonial geological literature — alongside Kr. Ligan (Babah Loh) (No. 3), Alu Talu (No. 5) and the Kwala Boe and Tjot Plaj pair (No. 6/7). The four localities together define the West-Atjeh iron-ore zone as recorded in the colonial geological literature, and the Kr. Rigaih locality — at 88 km NW of Meulaboh — is the north-westernmost of the four.
See Also
- Teuku Uma
- Acheh
- Alu Talu
- B. B. Lindberg
- H. Wolvekamp
- Iron ores in Atjeh
- Kr. Ligan (Babah Loh)
- Kwala Boe Tjot Plaj
- Meulaboh
- P. J. J. Jansen
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- 1922
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 207 (key to Fig. 41, Nos. 4 and 5, with locality description).