Scottish researchers have solved the mystery surrounding a volcanic eruption that sparked famine and crop failure around the world almost 200 years ago.
Scientists from the University of St Andrews say the eruption in 1831 – which caused a global cooling of approximately 1C – was at the Zavaritskii volcano on the remote, uninhabited island of Simushir, a part of the Kuril Islands, which are a disputed territory between Russia and Japan.
They also solved the mystery of when the volcano erupted, finding the devastating event occurred sometime during spring or summer by analysing ice core records from the event.
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The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, allowed Dr Will Hutchison from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and his team to accurately date and match the ice core deposits to the Zavaritskii volcano.
“Only in recent years have we developed the ability to extract microscopic ash shards from polar ice cores and conduct detailed chemical analyses on them. These shards are incredibly minute, roughly one tenth the diameter of a human hair,” Dr Hutchison said.
The volcano is on the remote, uninhabited island of Simushir, which is part of the Kuril Islands (Oleg Dirksen/PA Wire)
“We analysed the chemistry of the ice at a very high temporal resolution. This allowed us to pinpoint the precise timing of the eruption to spring-summer 1831, confirm that it was highly explosive, and then extract the tiny shards of ash.
“Finding the match took a long time and required extensive collaboration with colleagues from Japan and Russia, who sent us samples collected from these remote volcanoes decades ago. The moment in the lab when we analysed the two ashes together, one from the volcano and one from the ice core, was a genuine eureka moment.”
He added: “I couldn’t believe the numbers were identical. After this, I spent a lot of time delving into the age and size of the eruption in Kuril records to truly convince myself that the match was real.”
Currently controlled by Russia, the island operates as a strategic military outpost. During the Cold War, the Soviets used Simushir as a secret nuclear submarine base, docking vessels in a flooded volcanic crater.
The recent work, the team said, also highlights how the Kuril Islands are poorly studied, yet highly volcanic. Dr Hutchison said: “There are so many volcanoes like this, which highlights how difficult it will be to predict when or where the next large-magnitude eruption might occur.
“As scientists and as a society, we need to consider how to co-ordinate an international response when the next large eruption, like the one in 1831, happens.”