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The volcano that froze the planet in 1831 has finally been discovered by scientists. Learn how the volcano froze the planet and put humanity on alert!
In 1831, a shocking event altered the course of the climate in the Northern Hemisphere: an unknown volcano spewed immense amounts of ash and smoke into the sky, darkening the atmosphere and cooling much of the Northern Hemisphere. Volcano froze the planet and crops were ruined, entire communities faced famine and the world was left shaking following this cataclysm. Discover the volcano that froze the planet in 1831.
Volcano that froze the planet in 1831 is discovered by scientists
The volcano froze the planet, however, despite all the devastation, the location of this volcano has always been a mystery. However, a team of scientists led by volcanologist William Hutchison of University of St Andrews, in the United Kingdom, managed to find the culprit by analyzing ash from the eruption preserved in the ice of Greenland.
After exhaustive comparison work, they associated this historical event with a volcano in the Zavaritskii caldera, located on the remote island of Simushir, in the central Kuril Islands of Russia. This small strip of land, located between Russia and Japan, extends for only 59 kilometers, but it hides a volcanic past as fierce as it is revealing.
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Scientists' quest to discover the volcano that froze the planet in 1831 required an international collaboration to collect and analyze volcanic samples from this remote region. Hutchison described how they made the definitive connection.
According to the researcher, the moment in the laboratory when the two ashes were analyzed together, one from the volcano and the other from the ice, was a true eureka moment. He could not believe that the numbers were identical. From this discovery, the team of scientists also confirmed the age and size of the eruption, cementing the link between the ice ash and the Zavaritskii volcano.
How did the volcano freeze the planet?
In the 19th century, humanity lacked modern tools such as seismic monitoring stations or low-orbit satellites. As a result, a volcanic eruption on an uninhabited island could go completely unnoticed. Today, thanks to advances made by scientists, it is possible to track events like this and reconstruct how the volcano froze the planet and changed the climate.
For decades, scientists have speculated about the origin of the volcanic eruption that froze the planet in 1831 and 1833. One of the leading theories pointed to the Babuyan Volcano Clear, in the Philippines, but subsequent investigations showed that this never happened. Another hypothesis placed the event on Graham Island, an intermittent volcano in the Strait of Sicily. However, chemical analysis of ash trapped in the Greenland ice ruled out these possibilities.
They found that in 1831, sulfur precipitation, a known sign of volcanic activity, was about 6,5 times higher in Greenland than in Antarctica. This gave scientists a clue that the large eruption must have originated in mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere rather than in tropical areas, as previously thought, the researchers reported.
What does the volcano that froze the planet in 1831 look like?
Zavaritskii is characterized by its caldera, the hollow basin, a formation that often occurs when a volcano erupts. This caldera was probably formed during the 1831 eruption, according to scientists.
Hutchison and his team identified the characteristics of a Plinian eruption, similar to Vesuvius, and matched microscopic fragments of volcanic glass in the ice to the Simushir samples. The crater left by this eruption, known as the Zavaritskii caldera, still dominates the island's landscape and was likely formed during the 1831 event.
