Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions
This work was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 820047 to M.Si.), the Malcolm H. Wiener Foundation (Interdisciplinary Chronology of Civilizations Project to C.P.) and a UKRI Future...
Published in: | PNAS Nexus |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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2022
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25616 https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 |
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Open Polar |
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University of St Andrews: Digital Research Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftstandrewserep |
language |
English |
topic |
Ice cores Tree-rings Tephra Sulfate Volcanic forcing GE Environmental Sciences DAS GE |
spellingShingle |
Ice cores Tree-rings Tephra Sulfate Volcanic forcing GE Environmental Sciences DAS GE Pearson, Charlotte Sigl, Michael Burke, Andrea Davies, Siwan Kurbatov, Andrei Severi, Mirko Cole-Dai, Jihong Innes, Helen Albert, Paul G Helmick, Meredith Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
topic_facet |
Ice cores Tree-rings Tephra Sulfate Volcanic forcing GE Environmental Sciences DAS GE |
description |
This work was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 820047 to M.Si.), the Malcolm H. Wiener Foundation (Interdisciplinary Chronology of Civilizations Project to C.P.) and a UKRI Future Leader Fellowship (MR/S035478/1 to P.A). Decades of research have focused on establishing the exact year and climatic impact of the Minoan eruption of Thera, Greece (c.1680–1500 BCE). Ice cores offer key evidence to resolve this controversy, but attempts have been hampered by a lack of multi-volcanic event synchronization between records. In this study, Antarctic and Greenland ice-core records are synchronized using a double bipolar sulfate marker and calendar dates are assigned to each eruption revealed within the ‘Thera period’. From this global scale sequence of volcanic sulfate loading, we derive indications towards each eruption’s latitude and potential to disrupt the climate system. Ultra-fine sampling for sulfur isotopes and tephra conclusively demonstrate a colossal eruption of Alaska’s Aniakchak II as the source of stratospheric sulfate in the now precisely dated 1628 BCE ice layer. These findings end decades of speculation that Thera was responsible for the 1628 BCE event, and place Aniakchak II (52 ± 17 Tg S) and an unknown volcano at 1654 BCE (50 ± 13 Tg S) as two of the largest Northern Hemisphere sulfur injections in the last 4000 years. This opens possibilities to explore widespread climatic impacts for contemporary societies and, in pinpointing Aniakchak II, confirms that stratospheric sulfate can be globally distributed from eruptions outside the tropics. Dating options for Thera are reduced to a series of precisely dated, constrained stratospheric sulfur injection events at 1611 BCE, 1562-1555 BCE and c.1538 BCE which are all below 14 ± 5 Tg S, indicating a climatic forcing potential for Thera well below that of Tambora (1815 CE). Publisher PDF Peer reviewed |
author2 |
University of St Andrews. School of Earth & Environmental Sciences University of St Andrews. St Andrews Isotope Geochemistry |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Pearson, Charlotte Sigl, Michael Burke, Andrea Davies, Siwan Kurbatov, Andrei Severi, Mirko Cole-Dai, Jihong Innes, Helen Albert, Paul G Helmick, Meredith |
author_facet |
Pearson, Charlotte Sigl, Michael Burke, Andrea Davies, Siwan Kurbatov, Andrei Severi, Mirko Cole-Dai, Jihong Innes, Helen Albert, Paul G Helmick, Meredith |
author_sort |
Pearson, Charlotte |
title |
Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
title_short |
Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
title_full |
Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
title_fullStr |
Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions |
title_sort |
geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of aniakchak ii (1628 bce) and thera (minoan) volcanic eruptions |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25616 https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 |
geographic |
Antarctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Greenland |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Greenland ice core ice core |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Greenland ice core ice core |
op_relation |
PNAS Nexus Pearson , C , Sigl , M , Burke , A , Davies , S , Kurbatov , A , Severi , M , Cole-Dai , J , Innes , H , Albert , P G & Helmick , M 2022 , ' Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions ' , PNAS Nexus , vol. 1 , no. 2 , pgac048 . https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 2752-6542 PURE: 279470124 PURE UUID: dbc0ebad-e343-4d9c-928e-e24f47e79409 ORCID: /0000-0002-3754-1498/work/115630949 http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25616 https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 |
op_rights |
Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the National Academy of Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 |
container_title |
PNAS Nexus |
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1 |
container_issue |
2 |
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1770272203886034944 |
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ftstandrewserep:oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/25616 2023-07-02T03:29:43+02:00 Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions Pearson, Charlotte Sigl, Michael Burke, Andrea Davies, Siwan Kurbatov, Andrei Severi, Mirko Cole-Dai, Jihong Innes, Helen Albert, Paul G Helmick, Meredith University of St Andrews. School of Earth & Environmental Sciences University of St Andrews. St Andrews Isotope Geochemistry 2022-07-07T11:30:16Z 12 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25616 https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 eng eng PNAS Nexus Pearson , C , Sigl , M , Burke , A , Davies , S , Kurbatov , A , Severi , M , Cole-Dai , J , Innes , H , Albert , P G & Helmick , M 2022 , ' Geochemical ice-core constraints on the timing and climatic impact of Aniakchak II (1628 BCE) and Thera (Minoan) volcanic eruptions ' , PNAS Nexus , vol. 1 , no. 2 , pgac048 . https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 2752-6542 PURE: 279470124 PURE UUID: dbc0ebad-e343-4d9c-928e-e24f47e79409 ORCID: /0000-0002-3754-1498/work/115630949 http://hdl.handle.net/10023/25616 https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the National Academy of Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com Ice cores Tree-rings Tephra Sulfate Volcanic forcing GE Environmental Sciences DAS GE Journal article 2022 ftstandrewserep https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac048 2023-06-13T18:27:21Z This work was supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 820047 to M.Si.), the Malcolm H. Wiener Foundation (Interdisciplinary Chronology of Civilizations Project to C.P.) and a UKRI Future Leader Fellowship (MR/S035478/1 to P.A). Decades of research have focused on establishing the exact year and climatic impact of the Minoan eruption of Thera, Greece (c.1680–1500 BCE). Ice cores offer key evidence to resolve this controversy, but attempts have been hampered by a lack of multi-volcanic event synchronization between records. In this study, Antarctic and Greenland ice-core records are synchronized using a double bipolar sulfate marker and calendar dates are assigned to each eruption revealed within the ‘Thera period’. From this global scale sequence of volcanic sulfate loading, we derive indications towards each eruption’s latitude and potential to disrupt the climate system. Ultra-fine sampling for sulfur isotopes and tephra conclusively demonstrate a colossal eruption of Alaska’s Aniakchak II as the source of stratospheric sulfate in the now precisely dated 1628 BCE ice layer. These findings end decades of speculation that Thera was responsible for the 1628 BCE event, and place Aniakchak II (52 ± 17 Tg S) and an unknown volcano at 1654 BCE (50 ± 13 Tg S) as two of the largest Northern Hemisphere sulfur injections in the last 4000 years. This opens possibilities to explore widespread climatic impacts for contemporary societies and, in pinpointing Aniakchak II, confirms that stratospheric sulfate can be globally distributed from eruptions outside the tropics. Dating options for Thera are reduced to a series of precisely dated, constrained stratospheric sulfur injection events at 1611 BCE, 1562-1555 BCE and c.1538 BCE which are all below 14 ± 5 Tg S, indicating a climatic forcing potential for Thera well below that of Tambora (1815 CE). Publisher PDF Peer reviewed Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Greenland ice core ice core University of St Andrews: Digital Research Repository Antarctic Greenland PNAS Nexus 1 2 |