Buzz
“The sun appeared as a faint whitish-blue disc through the thick fog,” noted an observer in Palermo, Sicily, on August 8, 1831. Just two days later, a witness in Saint-Sever, France, remarked that “the sun looked round and white like a moon, devoid of visible rays, and could be gazed upon without causing any discomfort or eye strain. An hour later, it took on a pale blue hue,” as the sky turned a deep crimson. A journalist in Norfolk, Virginia, summed it up simply: “Sky blue and pea green.”
The dramatic shifts in the sun’s appearance were paired with bizarre weather events throughout Europe. Felix Mendelssohn, the German composer, who was traveling through the Swiss Alps, observed “bleak weather; it rained all night and all morning; it feels as cold as winter.”
Scientists have long speculated that the strange atmospheric phenomena experienced by Mendelssohn and others were linked to a colossal volcanic eruption that might have dropped global temperatures by as much as 1°C. However, the exact location of the 1831 mega-eruption remained elusive. The Babuyan Claro volcano in the Philippines was previously considered a likely source; however, a 2021 study published in the journal Climate of the Past pointed to the more probable culprit—Ferdinandea, a submerged volcanic mountain off the southwest coast of Sicily, which was observed to emerge from the sea in 1831.
A recent study by researchers from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland has identified a different, more isolated, and significantly more powerful eruption that occurred on the Kuril Islands, located north of Hokkaido, Japan. This sparsely inhabited, subarctic chain of islands is currently occupied by Russia.
Ice cores were collected during international drilling projects in Greenland. | Michael SiglThe study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on analyzing ice cores from Greenland. The researchers studied the chemical markers of volcanic particles found in the ice, specifically those that were deposited in 1831. They then extracted tiny ash fragments and compared them to various volcanic samples from the Kuril Islands, searching for similarities. The chemical tests eventually revealed a precise match with the Zavaritskii volcano located on the small Simushir Island.
“The moment we analyzed the two ashes together, one from the volcano and the other from the ice core, was an incredible eureka moment,” said lead author Dr. Will Hutchison in a statement. “I was amazed that the results were identical. Afterward, I spent considerable time researching the eruption’s age and size in Kuril records to fully convince myself that the match was legitimate.” He also expressed his gratitude to Russian and Japanese colleagues for supplying the ash samples for the analysis.
The researchers concluded that the 1831 Zavaritskii eruption had a magnitude between 5 and 6, comparable in strength to the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, one of the most significant volcanic events of the 20th century.
Understanding the Zavaritskii eruption goes beyond solving a centuries-old riddle. The researchers noted that their findings could aid in identifying potential future eruption hotspots. “Recognizing the origins of these enigmatic eruptions is vital,” the statement emphasized, “as it enables scientists to map and monitor areas of the world most susceptible to climate-altering volcanic activities.”
