Life after a supervolcano: it exists, but it's no fun

• Autores: Michael Marshall
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2915, 2013, pág. 13
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Around 75,000 years ago, the Toba supervolcano exploded on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, blasting enormous amounts of gas and ash into the air. Yet a new analysis suggests it had little impact on the climate, or on humans. Christine Lane of the University of Oxford and her colleagues were looking for clues to past climate change in the sediments at the bottom of Lake Malawi when they came across a layer of ash from the Toba eruption. The team was able to relate the depth of each sediment layer with the climate at the time when it was laid down by looking at chemical traces left by microbes, which adapt their structure to the climate. By studying these chemical signatures in the ash layer, Lane's team was able to estimate that Toba's eruption caused a minor, brief cooling of about 1.5°C over a period of 20 to 30 years.