People think they are omnipotent. They turn rivers back, fly into space and descend to the bottom of the ocean. But this is just an illusion. We still remain defenseless in the face of natural disasters. Recently, scientists have been talking about this more and more often, predicting the repeated eruption of the Toba and Yellowstone volcanoes. How does this threaten humanity? What were the consequences of the eruption of supervolcanoes tens of thousands of years ago? Let's listen to the opinion of experts.
What is a supervolcano?
People can walk on its surface for thousands of years and be unaware of it. The supervolcano can only be seen from space. It is a giant depression (caldera) located at the junction of lithospheric plates. If an ordinary volcano erupts, then supervolcanoes explode. This process can be compared to the impact of a very large asteroid, bringing with it death and severe cataclysms.
Kfortunately, this doesn't happen often. One of the largest in history was the explosion of the Toba volcano, located in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra. Visually, it is inconspicuous, but its caldera is impressive - 1775 sq. m. Lake Toba was formed in the funnel - the largest of the lakes of volcanic origin. In its middle part is the island of Samosir. It is said to be a resurgent dome. In 2004, seismologists recorded a shift in the island due to underground tectonic processes. Officially, the volcano is dormant, but this has not always been the case.
Why did ancient people die out?
In the 90s of the last century, geneticists made a discovery that came as a shock to everyone. There are too many similarities in the DNA of people inhabiting different parts of the planet. Even chimpanzees from different populations had four times more differences. From this the conclusion was drawn: we all descended from one or two thousand Cro-Magnons. But why did it happen? Where did the rest of the human ancestors go?
Greenland ice samples explained: another ice age has begun on Earth. A layer of ash from the Toba volcano remained in the ice, it precedes the cooling phase. Other traces of the explosion are found at the bottom of the Bay of Bengal, in India, Asia, China, and Africa. All this allowed scientists to conclude that the most powerful eruption of the Toba volcano 70 thousand years ago.
Megacolossal explosion
During the eruption, according to scientists, from 28 to 30 thousand cubic kilometers of magma, 5 thousand cubic kilometers of ash were thrown into the atmosphere. They reached a height of 50 kilometers, after which they settled onan area equal to half of Australia. Sulfur poured acid rain, ash blocked the sun's rays, causing a "volcanic winter".
The strongest explosion could not help but provoke earthquakes and tsunamis in different parts of the Earth. All this went on for about two weeks. Living beings within a radius of thousands of kilometers died from the blast, suffocation and hydrogen sulfide poisoning. But even in remote regions, the consequences were horrendous. It is the Toba volcano, according to some scientists, that is to blame for the fact that the number of primitive people has sharply decreased to 1-2 thousand people. In fact, our species is facing the gravest threat of extinction.
The bottleneck effect
Scientists use this term to explain the decline in the gene pool of a particular species. It fits perfectly to describe what happened to humanity. In ancient times, the human population was characterized by great genetic diversity. But then, under the influence of external circumstances, the population decreased sharply to a critical amount, which led to the impoverishment of the gene pool. Many researchers attribute this to the explosion of the Toba volcano.
Disputes about how much the climate changed after him are still ongoing. Someone talks about lowering temperatures by a maximum of 3.5 degrees, other scientists insist on a significant cooling in both hemispheres. The figures are called frightening - from 10 to 18 degrees. If the latter was true, nascent humanity had a hard time. Someexperts associate the death of the Neanderthals and the victory over them of the Cro-Magnons, who survived thanks to their mind, with that period.
However, excavations in India, neighboring Indonesia, show that people still survived. Stone tools are found both before the ash layer of the Toba volcano and immediately after it. In Africa, in Lake Malawi, the amount of volcanic remains is too small, the temperature here dropped by no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Be that as it may, but humanity once found itself on the verge of extinction. Is it a volcano, an asteroid, a cold snap, or a severe drought? It remains to be hoped that nature will be merciful to us, and this will never happen again. And the Toba volcano will forever remain a popular place among tourists where you can relax in nature.
