Youngest Toba eruption | |
---|---|
Volcano | Toba Caldera Complex |
Date | c. 74,000 years BP |
Location | Sumatra, Indonesia 2°41′04″N98°52′32″E / 2.6845°N 98.8756°E |
VEI | 8 |
Impact | Covered the Indian subcontinent in 5 cm (2.0 in) of ash, [1] volcanic winter may have caused a severe human population bottleneck |
Deaths | (Potentially) almost all of humanity, leaving around 3,000–10,000 humans left on the planet |
Lake Toba is the resulting crater lake |
The Toba eruption (sometimes called the Toba supereruption or the Youngest Toba eruption) was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred about 74,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene [2] at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the last in a series of at least four caldera-forming eruptions at this location, with the earlier known caldera having formed around 1.2 million years ago. [3] This last eruption had an estimated VEI of 8, making it the largest-known explosive volcanic eruption in the Quaternary, and one of the largest known explosive eruptions in the Earth's history.
The exact date of the eruption is unknown, but the pattern of ash deposits suggests that it occurred during the northern summer because only the summer monsoon could have deposited Toba ashfall in the South China Sea. [4] The eruption lasted perhaps 9 to 14 days. [5] The most recent two high-precision argon–argon datings dated the eruption to 73,880 ± 320 [6] and 73,700 ± 300 years ago. [7] Five distinct magma bodies were activated within a few centuries before the eruption. [8] [9] The eruption commenced with small and limited air-fall and was directly followed by the main phase of ignimbrite flows. [10] The ignimbrite phase is characterized by low eruption fountain, [11] but co-ignimbrite column developed on top of pyroclastic flows reached a height of 32 km (20 mi). [12] Petrological constraints on sulfur emission yielded a wide range from 1×1013 to 1×1015 g, depending on the existence of separate sulfur gas in the Toba magma chamber. [13] [14] The lower end of estimate is due to the low solubility of sulfur in the magma. [13] Ice core records estimate the sulfur emission on the order of 1×1014 g. [15]
Bill Rose and Craig Chesner of Michigan Technological University have estimated that the total amount of material released in the eruption was at least 2,800 km3 (670 cu mi) [16] —about 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) of ignimbrite that flowed over the ground, and approximately 800 km3 (190 cu mi) that fell as ash mostly to the west. However, as more outcrops become available, the most recent estimate of eruptive volume is 3,800 km3 (910 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent (DRE), of which 1,800 km3 (430 cu mi) was deposited as ash fall and 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) as ignimbrite, making this eruption the largest during the Quaternary period. [17] Previous volume estimates have ranged from 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) [5] to 6,000 km3 (1,400 cu mi). [18] Inside the caldera, the maximum thickness of pyroclastic flows is over 600 m (2,000 ft). [19] The outflow sheet originally covered an area of 20,000–30,000 km2 (7,700–11,600 sq mi) with thickness nearly 100 m (330 ft), likely reaching into the Indian Ocean and the Straits of Malacca. [10] The air-fall of this eruption blanketed the Indian subcontinent in a layer of 5 cm (2.0 in) ash, [20] the Arabian Sea in 1 mm (0.039 in), [21] the South China Sea in 3.5 cm (1.4 in), [4] and Central Indian Ocean Basin in 10 cm (3.9 in). [22] Its horizon of ashfall covered an area of more than 38,000,000 km2 (15,000,000 sq mi) in 1 cm (0.39 in) or more thickness. [17] In Sub-Saharan Africa, microscopic glass shards from this eruption are also discovered on the south coast of South Africa, [23] in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia, [24] in Lake Malawi, [25] and in Lake Chala. [26] In South China, Toba tephras is found in Huguangyan Maar Lake. [27]
The subsequent collapse formed a caldera that filled with water, creating Lake Toba. The island in the center of the lake is formed by a resurgent dome.
Greenland stadial 20 (GS20) is a millennium-long cold event in the north Atlantic ocean that started around the time of Toba eruption. [28] The timing of the initiation of GS20 is dated to 74.0–74.2 kyr, and the entire event lasted about 1,500 years. [28] [29] It is the stadial part of Dansgaard–Oeschger event 20 (DO20), commonly explained by an abrupt reduction in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Weaker AMOC caused warming in Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and this asynchrony is known as bipolar seesaw. [30] [31] The start of GS20 cooling event corresponds to the start of Antarctic Isotope Maxima 19 (AIM19) warming event. [32] GS20 was associated with iceberg discharges into the North Atlantic, thus it was also named Heinrich stadial 7a. [33] Heinrich events tend to be longer, colder and with weaker AMOC in the Atlantic ocean than other DO stadials. [30] From 74 to 58 kyr, Earth transitioned from interglacial marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 to glacial MIS 4, experiencing cooling and glacial expansion. [34] [35] This transition is a part of Pleistocene interglacial-glacial cycle driven by variations in the earth's orbit. [36] Ocean temperature cooled by 0.9 °C (1.6 °F). [37] Sea level fell 60 m (200 ft). [38] Northern Hemisphere ice sheets embarked on significant expansion and surpassed the extent of Last Glacial Maximum in eastern Europe, Northeast Asia and the North American Cordillera. [39] Southern Hemisphere glaciation grew to its maximum extent during MIS 4. [40] Australasian region, Africa and Europe were characterized by increasingly cold and arid environment. [41] [42] [43]
While Toba eruption occurred in the backdrop of rapid climate transitions of GS20 and MIS 4 triggered by changes in ocean currents and insolation, [44] [28] whether the eruption played any role in accelerating these events is much more debated. South China Sea marine records of climate, sampled at every centennial interval, shows 1 °C (1.8 °F) cooling above Toba ash layer for a thousand years but the authors concede that it may just be GS20. [45] Arabian Sea marine records confirm that Toba ash occurred after the onset of GS20 but also that GS20 is not colder than GS21 in the records, from which authors conclude that the eruption did not intensify GS20 cooling. [46] Dense sampling of environmental records, at every 6–9 year interval, in Lake Malawi, show no cooling-induced change in lake ecology and in grassy woodlands after the deposition of Toba ash, [25] [47] but cooling-forced aridity killed high elevation afromontane forests. [48] The Lake Malawi studies concluded that the environmental effects of the eruption were mild and limited to less than a decade in East Africa, [47] but these studies are questioned due to sediment mixing which would have diminished the cooling signal. [49] Environmental records from a Middle Stone Age site in Ethiopia, however, shows that a severe drought occurred concurrently with Toba ash layer which altered early human foraging behaviours. [24]
No Toba ash has been identified in ice core records, but four sulfate events within the ice strata have been proposed to possibly represent the deposition of aerosols from Toba eruption. [50] [32] [51] One sulfate event at 73.75–74.16 kyr, which has all the characteristics of the Toba eruption, is among the largest sulfate loadings that have ever been identified. [51] In the ice core records, GS20 cooling was already underway by the time of sulfate deposition, nonetheless a 110-year period of accelerated cooling followed the sulfate event, and the authors interpret this acceleration as AMOC weakened by the Toba eruption. [15]
The modeled climate effects of the Toba eruption hinges on the mass of sulfurous gases and aerosol microphysical processes. Modeling on an emission of 8.5×1014 g of sulfur, which is 100 times the 1991 Pinatubo sulphur, volcanic winter has a maximum global mean cooling of 3.5 °C (6.3 °F) and returns gradually within the range of natural variability 5 years after the eruption. An initiation of 1,000-year cold period or ice age is not supported by the model. [52] [53] Two other emission scenarios, 1×1014 g and 1×1015 g, are investigated using state-of-art simulations provided by the Community Earth System Model. Maximum global mean cooling is 2.3 °C (4.1 °F) for the lower emission and 4.1 °C (7.4 °F) for the higher emission. Strong decrease in precipitation occurs in high emission. Negative temperature anomalies return to less than 1 °C (1.8 °F) within 3 and 6 years for each emission scenario after the eruption. [54] But so far no model can simulate aerosol microphysical processes with sufficient accuracy, empirical constraints from historical eruptions suggest that aerosol size may substantially reduce magnitude of cooling to less than 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) no matter how much sulfur emitted. [55]
The Toba catastrophe theory holds that the eruption caused a severe global volcanic winter of six to ten years and contributed to a 1,000-year-long cooling episode, resulting in a genetic bottleneck in humans. [56] [57] However, some physical evidence disputes the association with the millennium-long cold event and genetic bottleneck, and some consider the theory disproven. [58] [48] [59] [60] [61]
In 1972, an analysis of human hemoglobins found very few variants, and to account for the low frequency of variation human population must have been as low as a few thousand until very recently. [62] More genetic studies confirmed an effective population on the order of 10,000 for much of human history. [63] [64] Subsequent research on the differences in human mitochondrial DNA sequences dated a rapid growth from a small effective population size of 1,000 to 10,000, sometime between 35 and 65 kyr. [65] [66] [67]
In 1993, science journalist Ann Gibbons posited that population growth was suppressed by the cold climate of the last Pleistocene Ice Age, possibly exacerbated by the Toba super-eruption which at the time was dated to between 73 and 75 kyr near the beginning of glacial period MIS 4. [5] [68] The subsequent explosive human expansion was believed to be the result of the end of the ice age. [69] Geologist Michael R. Rampino of New York University and volcanologist Stephen Self of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa supported her theory. [70] In 1998, anthropologist Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign hypothesized that the Toba eruption caused a human population crash to only a few thousand surviving individuals, and the subsequent recovery was suppressed by the global glacial condition of MIS 4 until the climate eventually transitioned to the warmer condition of MIS 3 about 60,000 years ago, during which rapid human population expansion occurred. [56]
At least two other Homo lineages, H. neanderthals, and Denisovans, survived the Toba eruption and subsequent MIS 4 ice age, as their latest presence are dated to ca. 40 kyr, [71] and ca. 55 kyr. [72] Other lineages including H. floresiensis , [73] H. luzonensis , [74] and Penghu 1 [75] may have also survived through the eruption. More recently, reconstructions of human demographic history using whole-genome sequencing [76] [77] [78] and discoveries of archaeological cultures with Toba ash layer [79] [23] [24] add further light to how humans had fared during the eruption and the following GS20 and MIS 4 ice age.
Recent analyses apply Markov models to the complete set of genetic material to infer human population history. [80] [81] In non-African populations, studies recover a long-term steep decline in numbers starting 200 kyr and reaching the lowest point around 40–60 kyr. [80] [76] During this bottleneck non-African populations experienced 5- to 15-fold reduction, [82] with only 1,000–3,000 remaining individuals at 50 kyr, consistent with the earliest mtDNA studies. [76] [77] [81] This severe non-African contraction is consistent with founder effect caused by Out-of-Africa dispersal. As a small group with a size of a few thousand people migrated from the African continent into the Near East, the drastic reduction in numbers imprinted on non-African genomic diversity. [76] [82] [83] Genetic analysis identified 56 selective sweeps related to cold adaptations in non-African populations, of which 31 sweeps occurred during 72–97 kyr. This event of closely timed selections is named Arabian Standstill and may have been caused by the severe cold arid conditions from the onset of MIS 4 and exacerbated by Toba super-eruption. [84]
African populations experienced a slightly earlier, milder bottleneck and recovered earlier. [81] [85] Luhya and Maasai people attained their lowest numbers around 70–80 kyr, while Yoruba people reached a nadir around 50 kyr, [81] though the long-term declining trend already started before 200 kyr. [86] The estimated remaining effective population sizes are around 10,000 individuals, larger than the estimated non-African size during their bottleneck. [76] [77] [78] Unlike the non-African populations, there is no consensus as to the cause of African bottleneck. Proposed causes include climatic deterioration (from MIS 5, Toba eruption, GS20 and/or MIS 4), [49] [83] [87] reduction in substructure across African populations, and founder effects from the dispersal within Africa. [83]
Earlier genetic analysis of Alu sequences across the entire human genome has shown that the effective human population size was less than 26,000 at 1.2 million years ago; possible explanations for the low population size of human ancestors may include repeated population crashes or periodic replacement events from competing Homo subspecies. [88] Whole-genome analysis similarly recovers very low African population sizes around 1 million years ago. [77] [78] [89] This 1 million year old bottleneck is thought to have been caused by severe ice age MIS 22 which marked the mid-Pleistocene climate transition with widespread aridity across Africa. [89] [90]
Other research has cast doubt on an association between the Toba Caldera Complex and a genetic bottleneck. For example, ancient stone tools at the Jurreru Valley in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers, suggesting that the dust clouds from the eruption did not wipe out this local population. [91] [92] [93] However, another site in India, the Middle Son Valley, exhibits evidence of a major population decline and it has been suggested that the abundant springs of the Jurreru Valley may have offered its inhabitants unique protection. [94] At the Jurreru Valley in southern India, Middle Paleolithic stone tools below the Toba ash layer are dated by OSL to 77±4 kyr, while the age of stone tools above the ash layer is constrained to be no older than 55 kyr. This age gap is suspected to be due to the removal of post-eruption sediments or decimation of the local population until re-occupation at 55 kyr. [95] Additional archaeological evidence from southern and northern India also suggests a lack of evidence for effects of the eruption on local populations, causing the authors of the study to conclude, "many forms of life survived the supereruption, contrary to other research which has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks". [96] However, some researchers have questioned the techniques utilized to date artifacts to the period subsequent to the Toba supervolcano. [97] The Toba Catastrophe also coincides with the disappearance of the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins. [98] Evidence from pollen analysis has suggested prolonged deforestation in South Asia, and some researchers have suggested that the Toba eruption may have forced humans to adopt new adaptive strategies, which may have permitted them to replace Neanderthals and "other archaic human species". [99] [100]
Some evidence indicates population crashes of other animals after the Toba eruption. The populations of the Eastern African chimpanzee, [101] Bornean orangutan, [102] central Indian macaque, [103] cheetah and tiger, [104] all expanded from very small populations around 70,000–55,000 years ago.
Lake Toba is a large natural lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the caldera of the Toba supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 metres (2,953 ft), the lake stretches from 2.88°N 98.52°E to 2.35°N 99.1°E. The lake is about 100 kilometres long, 30 kilometres (19 mi) wide, and up to 505 metres (1,657 ft) deep. It is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world. Toba Caldera is one of twenty geoparks in Indonesia, and was recognised in July 2020 as one of the UNESCO Global Geoparks.
A supervolcano is a volcano that has had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 8, the largest recorded value on the index. This means the volume of deposits for such an eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers.
The Younger Dryas (YD) was a period in Earth's geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years Before Present (BP). It is primarily known for the sudden or "abrupt" cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, when the North Atlantic Ocean cooled and annual air temperatures decreased by ~3 °C (5.4 °F) over North America, 2–6 °C (3.6–10.8 °F) in Europe and up to 10 °C (18 °F) in Greenland, in a few decades. Cooling in Greenland was particularly rapid, taking place over just 3 years or less. At the same time, the Southern Hemisphere experienced warming. This period ended as rapidly as it began, with dramatic warming over ~50 years, which transitioned the Earth from the glacial Pleistocene epoch into the current Holocene.
A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as genocide, speciocide, widespread violence or intentional culling. Such events can reduce the variation in the gene pool of a population; thereafter, a smaller population, with a smaller genetic diversity, remains to pass on genes to future generations of offspring. Genetic diversity remains lower, increasing only when gene flow from another population occurs or very slowly increasing with time as random mutations occur. This results in a reduction in the robustness of the population and in its ability to adapt to and survive selecting environmental changes, such as climate change or a shift in available resources. Alternatively, if survivors of the bottleneck are the individuals with the greatest genetic fitness, the frequency of the fitter genes within the gene pool is increased, while the pool itself is reduced.
A volcanic winter is a reduction in global temperatures caused by droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the Sun and raising Earth's albedo (increasing the reflection of solar radiation) after a large, sulfur-rich, particularly explosive volcanic eruption. Climate effects are primarily dependent upon the amount of injection of SO2 and H2S into the stratosphere where they react with OH and H2O to form H2SO4 on a timescale of a week, and the resulting H2SO4 aerosols produce the dominant radiative effect. Volcanic stratospheric aerosols cool the surface by reflecting solar radiation and warm the stratosphere by absorbing terrestrial radiation for several years. Moreover, the cooling trend can be further extended by atmosphere–ice–ocean feedback mechanisms. These feedbacks can continue to maintain the cool climate long after the volcanic aerosols have dissipated.
The Lava Creek Tuff is a voluminous sheet of ash-flow tuff located in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, United States. It was created during the Lava Creek eruption around 630,000 years ago, which led to the formation of the Yellowstone Caldera. This eruption is considered the climactic event of Yellowstone's third volcanic cycle. The Lava Creek Tuff covers an area of more than 7,500 km2 (2,900 sq mi) centered around the caldera and has an estimated magma volume of 1,000 km3 (240 cu mi).
The Chibanian, more widely known as Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The Chibanian name was officially ratified in January 2020. It is currently estimated to span the time between 0.770 Ma and 0.129 Ma, also expressed as 770–126 ka. It includes the transition in palaeoanthropology from the Lower to the Middle Paleolithic over 300 ka.
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian. The beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the transition between the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and the beginning of the Last Interglacial around 130,000 years ago. The Late Pleistocene ends with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began.
Marine Isotope Stage 11 or MIS 11 is a Marine Isotope Stage in the geologic temperature record, covering the interglacial period between 424,000 and 374,000 years ago. It corresponds to the Hoxnian Stage in Britain.
Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus. This initial migration was followed by other archaic humans including H. heidelbergensis, which lived around 500,000 years ago and was the likely ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals as well as modern humans. Early hominids had likely crossed land bridges that have now sunk.
Reclus, also written as Reclús, is a cinder cone and stratovolcano located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile. Part of the Austral Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit rises 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level and is capped by a crater about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. Close to the volcano lies the Amalia Glacier, which is actively eroding Reclus.
Several expansions of populations of archaic humans out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma). These expansions are collectively known as Out of Africa I, in contrast to the expansion of Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) into Eurasia, which may have begun shortly after 0.2 million years ago.
The Campanian Ignimbrite eruption was a major volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean during the late Quaternary, classified 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The event has been attributed to the Archiflegreo volcano, the 12-by-15-kilometre-wide caldera of the Phlegraean Fields, located 20 km (12 mi) west of Mount Vesuvius under the western outskirts of the city of Naples and the Gulf of Pozzuoli, Italy. It is the largest explosive volcanic event in Europe in the past 200,000 years, and the largest eruption of Campi Fleigrei caldera.
Michael R. Rampino is a Geologist and Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at New York University, known for his scientific contributions on causes of mass extinctions of life. Along with colleagues, he's developed theories about periodic mass extinctions being strongly related to the earth's position in relation to the galaxy. "The solar system and its planets experience cataclysms every time they pass "up" or "down" through the plane of the disk-shaped galaxy." These ~30 million year cyclical breaks are an important factor in evolutionary theory, along with other longer 60-million- and 140-million-year cycles potentially caused by mantle plumes within the planet, opining "The Earth seems to have a pulse," He is also a research consultant at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City.
The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial period that occurred before the Last Glacial Period. The penultimate glacial period is officially unnamed just like the Last Glacial Period. The PGP lasted from ~194,000 years ago, to ~135,000 years ago, and was succeeded by the Last Interglacial. The PGP also occurred during Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS6). At the glacial ages' height, it is known to be the most extensive expansion of glaciers in the last 400,000 years over Eurasia, and could be the second or third coolest glacial period over the last 1,000,000 years, as shown by ice cores. Due to this, the global sea level dropped to between 92 and 150 metres below modern-day global mean sea level. The penultimate glacial period expanded ice sheets and shifted temperature zones worldwide, which had a variety of effects on the world's environment, and the organisms that lived in it. At its height, the penultimate glacial period was a more severe glaciation than the Last Glacial Maximum. The PGP covers the last period of the Saalian glaciation in Europe, called the Wolstonian Stage in Britain, and is equivalent to the Illinoian in North America.
Christine Susanna Lane is a physical geographer and Quaternary researcher. She has held the Professor of Geography (1993) chair in the University of Cambridge, Department of Geography since 2016.
Stephen Self is a British volcanologist, best known for his work on large igneous provinces and on the global impacts of volcanic eruptions.