Toba catastrophe theory
Supereruption 74,000 years ago that may have caused a global volcanic winter / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Toba eruption (sometimes called the Toba supereruption or the Youngest Toba eruption) was a supervolcano eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene[1] at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the largest known explosive eruptions in the Earth's history. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a severe global volcanic winter of six to ten years and contributed to a 1,000-year-long cooling episode, leading to a genetic bottleneck in humans.[2][3]
Toba eruption theory | |
---|---|
Volcano | Toba Caldera Complex |
Date | c. 74,000 years BP |
End time | 9–14 days |
Type | Ultra-Plinian |
Location | Sumatra, Indonesia 2.6845°N 98.8756°E / 2.6845; 98.8756 |
VEI | 8 |
Impact | Second-most recent supereruption; impact disputed |
Deaths | (Potentially) almost all of humanity, leaving around 3,000–10,000 humans left on the planet |
Lake Toba is the resulting crater lake |
A number of genetic studies have found that 50,000 years ago, the human ancestor population greatly expanded from only a few thousand individuals.[4][5] Science journalist Ann Gibbons has posited that the low population size was caused by the Toba eruption.[6] Geologist Michael R. Rampino of New York University and volcanologist Stephen Self of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have supported her suggestion.[7] In 1998, the bottleneck theory was further developed by anthropologist Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.[2] However, some physical evidence disputes the links with the millennium-long cold event and genetic bottleneck, and some consider the theory disproven.[8][9][10][11][12]