Hekla 3 eruption
| Hekla 3 eruption | |
|---|---|
| Volcano | Hekla |
| Date | Circa 1000 BCE |
| Type | Plinian |
| Location | Iceland Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| VEI | 5 |
| Impact | Caused worldwide temperatures to drop for 18 years |
 Hekla
Hekla on the map of Iceland
|
|
The Hekla 3 eruption (H-3) circa 1000 BCE is considered the most severe eruption of Hekla during the Holocene.[1] It threw about 7.3 km3 of volcanic rock into the atmosphere,[2] placing its Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) at 5. This would have cooled temperatures in the northern parts of the globe for several years afterwards.
An eighteen-year span of global cooling is recorded in Irish bog oaks that has been attributed to H-3.[3][4]
The eruption is detectable in Greenland ice-cores, the bristlecone pine sequence, and the Irish oak sequence of extremely narrow growth rings. Andy Baker's team of reseearchers dated it to 1021 BCE ±130–100.[5]
A "high chronology" (earlier) interpretation of the above results is preferred by Baker, based also on growth of stalagmites. In Sutherland, northwest Scotland, a spurt of four years of doubled annual luminescent growth banding of calcite in a stalagmite is datable to 1135 BCE ±130.[6]
A rival, "low-chronology" interpretation of the eruption has been made by Andrew Dugmore: 2879 BP (929 BCE ±34).[7] In 1999, Dugmore suggested a non-volcanic explanation for the Scottish results.[8] In 2000 skepticism concerning conclusions about connecting Hekla 3 and Hekla 4 (probably 2310 BCE ±20) with paleoenvironmental events and archaeologically attested abandonment of settlement sites in northern Scotland was expressed by John P. Grattan and David D. Gilbertson.[9]
Some Egyptologists have firmly dated the eruption to 1159 BCE, and blamed it for famines under Ramesses III during the wider Bronze Age collapse.[10] Dugmore has rebutted this dating and maintained his previous dating to this day.[11] Other scholars have held off on this dispute, preferring the neutral and vague "3000 BP".[12]
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Dated by uranium-thorium thermal ionization mass spectrometry to 1135 BCE ±130 in Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Andrew Dugmore, Geriant Coles, Paul Buckland, "A Scottish speleothem record of the H-3 eruption or human impact? A comment on Baker, Smart, Barnes, Edwards and Farrant" The Holocene 9.4 501-503 (1999).
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Late Holocene solifluction history reconstructed using tephrochronology, Martin P. Kirkbride & Andrew J. Dugmore, Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2005; v. 242; p. 145-155.
- ↑ TOWARDS A HOLOCENE TEPHROCHRONOLOGY FOR SWEDEN, Stefan WastegÅrd, XVI INQUA Congress, Paper No. 41-13, Saturday, July 26, 2003.
