Watched a TV program about the 1257 Lombok eruption.

The mystery event in 1257 was so large its chemical signature is recorded in the ice of both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Was said to have killed people as far away as London, from famine.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34868

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1257_Samalas_eruption

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24332239

“Samalas was at least as big as Krakatoa (1883) and Tambora (1815)”.

The ice cores do hold clues to yet another colossal event in about 1809, but, like Samalas before it, finding the source volcano has been difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1808/1809_mystery_eruption

I hadn’t heard of it, or about the 7 major eruptions spotted in Antarctic ice cores since then.

Heard of it?

Yes and no,

I had heard of the 1250s event that supposedly triggered a harsh winter and crop failures across Europe and Asia, but IIRC they were trying to pin it on an earlier Krakatoa. I had not heard of Lombok specifically.

Yeah, I’d read about it years ago.

party_pants said:

Yes and no,

I had heard of the 1250s event that supposedly triggered a harsh winter and crop failures across Europe and Asia, but IIRC they were trying to pin it on an earlier Krakatoa. I had not heard of Lombok specifically.

I have just read A Short History of Planet Earth (Ian Plimer) and there are lots of volcanoes mentioned. I thought that one was in there, but I can’t see it. Maybe it was in the other book “Tambora”, which I haven’t read recently.

And I’ll add this link too moll. I like timelines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_volcanism_on_Earth

Oh my…somewhere to play!

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/servlet/ShowDatasets?dataset=102557&search_look=50&display_look=50

NOAA database of significant eruptions. Searchable by time etc.

And the Smithsonian too

https://volcano.si.edu/

Really going to bed now.

buffy said:

Oh my…somewhere to play!

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/servlet/ShowDatasets?dataset=102557&search_look=50&display_look=50

NOAA database of significant eruptions. Searchable by time etc.

Now I’m playing with it too. 1257 is not there.

I still don’t get VEI, why is Mt Pinatubo rated higher than Mt St Helens? They both had the same height of stratospheric plume and Mt St Helens moved more mass at ground level.

Based on “volume of erupted tephra”, tephra defined as rock fragments, for Mt St Helens it was 1 km^3 and for Mt Pinatubo it was 10 km^3. But that’s really just because the eruption of Mt Pinatubo lasted longer isn’t it?

Does or does not a ground collapse (landslide) count as “erupted tephra”? Wikipedia says the largest tephra is volcanic bombs, which are tiny compared to landslide fragments. And then, what if the landslide is slow, over say days, and leaves large fragments? It’s far from clear to me how the boundary is marked.