Human Sickness and Mortality Rates in Relation to the Distant Eruption of Volcanic Gases: Rural England and the 1783 Eruption of the Laid Fissure, Iceland

• Main Authors: Gilbertson, David, Durand, Michael
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2003
• Subjects: Laki; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195162042.003.0008

Chapter 3 explores an apparent relationship between human mortality in England and exposure to acid volatiles derived from the Laki fissure eruption of 1783. It has long been known that volcanic tephra and gases may be transported great distances (Thórarinsson 1981). Research into their impacts on human health and the environment has typically focused on populations and environments relatively close to the eruption (e.g. Oskarsson 1980, Rose 1977, Thórarinsson 1979). However, recent investigations of documentary sources such as diaries and newspapers have suggested that in particular meteorological situations, and where air masses are stable, profound health and environmental consequences may have occurred in the British Isles and elsewhere in Europe, at great distances from the volcanic source in Iceland (Brayshay and Grattan 1999, Dodgshon et al. 2000, Durand 2000, Durand and Grattan 1999, Grattan 1998 a and b, Grattan and Brayshay 1995, Grattan and Charman 1994, Grattan and Pyatt 1994, 1999, Grattan et al. 1998, Stothers 1996). This chapter presents and examines documentary evidence for human illness, which may have been induced by volcanogenic air pollution, and mortality in several widely dispersed villages in rural England in the late eighteenth century. Burial records for these settlements point to a singular peak in mortality in the summer of 1783, a period that is coincident with the peak concentration of volcanic gases from the Laki fissure in the European environment. The Laki fissure eruption took place between June 1783 and February 1784. It produced large quantities of acid volatiles — approximately ~120 Mt SO2, 6.8 Mt HC1, and 15.1 Mt HF plus H2S and NH3. Of the total compounds emitted, approximately 60% were emitted during the first few months of activity and the majority of these emissions were confined to the troposphere (Sparks et al. 1997,Thordarson et al. 1996, Thordarson and Self 1993). The eruption therefore generated the largest known air pollution event of the last two millennia ...