Massive Supereruptions Might Not Trigger the Apocalypse, Just Decades of Chaos

Finally, there’s some good news on the climate apocalypse front. Climate experts have long believed that a volcanic supereruption—a mind-bendingly powerful explosion capable of altering Earth’s atmosphere—could wipe out a significant portion of life. But a new survey of geological records suggests the aftermath wouldn’t be quite as apocalyptic. It would still be bad—just not end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it bad. This refreshing burst of optimism comes courtesy of a group of University of St. Andrews environmental scientists who were examining ice cores pulled from Greenland and Antarctica, as well as sediment cores from near the equator in the Pacific. The cores contained tiny specks of ash, embedded in layers connected to the time period of the Los Chocoyos supereruption, which occurred in what is now known as Guatemala’s Atitlán caldera. While the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Project dates the eruption to 84,000 years ago, St. Andrews geologists claim to have more accurately dated ... Read full article.