Retrieval of ice cores that scientists analyzed shows definitive proof that volcanic eruptions in the last 2,500 years would drive the planet's environment to the extreme.
At one point, it happened in the last ice age when about 25 of these pyroclastic explosions would dwarf recent ones. Volcanoes are the most prominent and noticeable geological features that have influenced the planet.
Volcanic Eruptions in the Past
Researchers are looking at these cores with 60,000 years of geological time, evidence of numerous eruptions over an expanse of time starting the last Ice Age.
The focus is the 25 eruptions registered to be the biggest in the last 2,500 years, Science Alert reported. Examination of the cores from the two poles shows that the arctic had 737 eruptions, while Greenland had 1,113 eruptions. About 85 instances of explosive volcanic activity left evidence at both poles.
Measuring the amount of sulfuric acid deposited by the volcanic activity leaves a clue to scientists how far and wide the eruption has reached. Volcanoes are the most influential geological features that directly impact the environment.
According to physicist Anders Svensson from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark have the data to hypothesize how the ancient activity happened, noted Science. It has some advantages to boot.
Explanation of Volcanic Eruptions
Any volcano's eruption would emit residue like sulfuric acid as it enters the atmosphere ejected by sheer force. Next, it floats all over the globe and lands on Greenland and Antarctica, seen in the ice cores.
How big the eruption is determined by how much sulfuric acid is found as deposited.
According to the team working on the specimen, the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) ranges from 1 to 8. They discovered 69 volcanic eruptions that exceeded the 1815 Tambora eruption (VEI 7). Scientists say the event was able to clog the upper atmosphere and cause global cooling.
Of the 69-eruptions record in the samples, in New Zealand, the Taupo lake eruption would hit VEI 8 about 26,500 years ago. Another is in Toba, Indonesia, which is also VEI8 and occurred approximately 74,000.
In modern, during 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland was only four on the VEI scale, the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption in Chile in the same year was higher at VEI 5.
Volcanic Explosivity Index
Studies have predicted the next VEI 7 event is about an interval of once or twice per 1,000 years, and one might be coming soon. But a VEI 8 monster eruptive even might in several hundred years or thousand years based on estimates.
The eruptions were much more prominent than any in living memory and far more destructive in their effect on the planet. The study seeks to fill in several gaps in earth's pyroclastic record, which had previously been a little nebulous beyond 2,500 years ago.
Svensson added the new 60,000-year timeline of volcanic activity to give a better measure.
VEI 7-8 eruptions were more common in the prehistoric Ice Age than in this epoch. Destructive eruptions are not happening now, for now, none of which is good for everyone on earth.
These ice cores show that the planet affecting volcanic explosion happened 2,500 years ago, but studies are yet to verify everything, per Copernicus Publications' Climate of the Past.
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