The magnitude and impact of the 431 CE Tierra Blanca Joven eruption of Ilopango, El Salvador ...

• Main Authors: Smith, Victoria C., Costa, Antonio, Aguirre-Díaz, Gerardo, Pedrazzi, Dario, Scifo, Andrea, Plunkett, Gill, Poret, Mattieu, Tournigand, Pierre-Yves, Miles, Dan, Dee, Michael W., McConnell, Joseph R., Sunyé-Puchol, Ivan, Harris, Pablo Dávila, Sigl, Michael, Pilcher, Jonathan R., Chellman, Nathan, Gutiérrez, Eduardo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bern 2020
• Subjects: Greenland; Greenland ice core; ice core
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7892/boris.147102; https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/handle/20.500.12422/37398

The Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) eruption from Ilopango volcano deposited thick ash over much of El Salvador when it was inhabited by the Maya, and rendered all areas within at least 80 km of the volcano uninhabitable for years to decades after the eruption. Nonetheless, the more widespread environmental and climatic impacts of this large eruption are not well known because the eruption magnitude and date are not well constrained. In this multifaceted study we have resolved the date of the eruption to 431 ± 2 CE by identifying the ash layer in a well-dated, high-resolution Greenland ice-core record that is >7,000 km from Ilopango; and calculated that between 37 and 82 km3 of magma was dispersed from an eruption coignimbrite column that rose to ∼45 km by modeling the deposit thickness using state-of-the-art tephra dispersal methods. Sulfate records from an array of ice cores suggest stratospheric injection of 14 ± 2 Tg S associated with the TBJ eruption, exceeding those of the historic eruption of Pinatubo in ...