The mysterious location of a giant volcanic eruption that has baffled scientists for almost 200 years has finally been solved thanks to researchers at the University of St Andrews.
In 1831, a massive volcanic eruption spewed sulfurous gases into the atmosphere, reflecting sunlight and causing a global cooling of approximately 1°C. This cold weather, well documented around the world, caused widespread crop failures and devastating famines. It has now been determined that that eruption occurred in the Kuril Islandsnorth of the Pacific Ocean.
The composer Felix Mendelssohn even wrote about the catastrophic weather during his summer trip through the Alps in 1831: “Desolate weather, it has rained again all night and all morning, ago both cold and winter“There is already deep snow in nearby mountains”
The 1831 eruption is the “mysterious eruption” latest of the Earth. While scientists knew this was a major event that caused climate change and social unrest, the identity of the volcano responsible remained unknown and fiercely debated until now.
New research, led by Dr Will Hutchison from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesreveals how the team analyzed ice core records of the 1831 Event and identified a “perfect fingerprint match” from the ash deposits.
“Only in recent years have we developed the ability to extract microscopic fragments of ash from polar ice cores and perform detailed chemical analyzes about them. “These fragments are incredibly tiny, about one-tenth the diameter of a human hair,” Dr. Hutchison explained in a statement.
Kuril Islands
Dr Hutchison and his team were able to precisely date and relate the ice core deposits to the Zavaritskii volcano on the remote and uninhabited island of Simushir, part of the Kuril Islands. The islands are a territory in dispute between Russia and Japan. Currently controlled by Russia, they operate as a strategic military outpost. During the Cold War, in a plot reminiscent of a Bond film, the Soviets used Simushir as a secret nuclear submarine base, docking ships in a flooded volcanic crater.
“We analyzed the chemistry of the ice with a very high temporal resolution. This allowed us to determine the precise moment of eruptionspring-summer 1831, confirm that it was highly explosive and then extract the small ash fragments. Finding the match took a long time and required extensive collaboration with colleagues in Japan and Russia, who sent us samples collected from these remote volcanoes decades ago.
“The moment in the laboratory in which we analyzed the two ashes together, one from the volcano and the other from the ice core, was a real eureka moment. I couldn’t believe that the numbers were identical. After this, I spent a lot of time researching the age and size of the eruption in the Kuril records to really convince myself that the coincidence was real.” This work highlights the Kuril Islands as an understudied but extremely productive volcanic region.
The volcano responsible for the 1831 eruption It was very remotebut it had a significant global impact on the climate and serious consequences for human populations. Identifying the sources of these mysterious eruptions is crucial, as it allows scientists to map and monitor the regions of Earth most likely to produce climate-altering volcanic events.
Dr Hutchison added: “There are so many volcanoes like this, which highlights how It will be difficult to predict when or where the next large-scale eruption could occur. “As scientists and as a society, we must consider how to coordinate an international response when the next major eruption, such as that of 1831, occurs.”
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