Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Fire and brimstone: how volcanoes work
- 2 Eruption styles, hazards and ecosystem impacts
- 3 Volcanoes and global climate change
- 4 Forensic volcanology
- 5 Relics, myths and chronicles
- 6 Killer plumes
- 7 Human origins
- 8 The ash giant/sulphur dwarf
- 9 European volcanism in prehistory
- 10 The rise of Teotihuacán
- 11 Dark Ages: dark nature?
- 12 The haze famine
- 13 The last great subsistence crisis in the Western world
- 14 Volcanic catastrophe risk
- Appendix A Large eruptions
- Appendix B Further reading and data sources
- References
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Fire and brimstone: how volcanoes work
- 2 Eruption styles, hazards and ecosystem impacts
- 3 Volcanoes and global climate change
- 4 Forensic volcanology
- 5 Relics, myths and chronicles
- 6 Killer plumes
- 7 Human origins
- 8 The ash giant/sulphur dwarf
- 9 European volcanism in prehistory
- 10 The rise of Teotihuacán
- 11 Dark Ages: dark nature?
- 12 The haze famine
- 13 The last great subsistence crisis in the Western world
- 14 Volcanic catastrophe risk
- Appendix A Large eruptions
- Appendix B Further reading and data sources
- References
- Index
Summary
The largest volcanic salvo of the last century took place in a remote part of the Alaska Peninsula in 1912. The eruption of Mount Katmai expelled around 28 cubic kilometres (nearly seven cubic miles) of ash and pumice, projecting roughly two-thirds of it into the air and the remaining third as ground-hugging hurricanes of dust and rock. The only event to have come close to it in more recent times is the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines. Had an eruption the size of Katmai's 1912 outburst occurred in more densely populated regions of the ‘lower 48’ or, say, in Italy, Indonesia or the Caribbean, the event would be much better known outside of the volcanological coterie. In case you are wondering how to envisage 28 cubic kilometres of volcanic rock, it is sufficient to form a blanket seven centimetres thick (nearly three inches) over California, or 11 centimetres across the UK!
However, the Katmai eruption was a fairly trivial demonstration of volcanic fury viewed from either geological or human evolutionary perspectives. Around 7700 years ago, an eruption twice the size did strike the conterminous USA (in Oregon). Remarkably, the memory of the eruption, which formed the magnificent landform known as Crater Lake, lingers in the oral traditions of the Klamath native American tribe. Another eruption, more than twice as large again, struck the eastern Mediterranean only 3600 years ago. It may have had a devastating ‘slow-fuse’ impact on the Minoans, one of the great early civilisations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Eruptions that Shook the World , pp. ix - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011