Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE
Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment, and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually resolved radiocarbon ($^{14}$C) measurements to isolate the...
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ftunivcam:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/266913 2024-02-04T10:00:21+01:00 Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE Büntgen, U Eggertsson, Ó Wacker, L Sigl, M Ljungqvist, FC di Cosmo, N Plunkett, G Krusic, PJ Newfield, TP Esper, J Lane, C Reinig, F Oppenheimer, C 2017 application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266913 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11141 eng eng Geological Society of America http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/g39269.1 Geology https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266913 doi:10.17863/CAM.11141 37 Earth Sciences 3709 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience 3705 Geology 13 Climate Action Article 2017 ftunivcam https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11141 2024-01-11T23:31:19Z Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment, and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually resolved radiocarbon ($^{14}$C) measurements to isolate the 775 CE cosmogenic $^{14}$C peak in a subfossil birch tree that was buried by a glacial outburst flood in southern Iceland. We employ this absolute time marker to date a subglacial eruption of Katla volcano at late 822 CE to early 823 CE. We argue for correlation between the 822–823 CE eruption and a conspicuous sulfur anomaly evident in Greenland ice cores, which follows in the wake of an even larger volcanic signal (ca. 818–820 CE) as yet not attributed to a known eruption. An abrupt summer cooling in 824 CE, evident in tree-ring reconstructions for Fennoscandia and the Northern Hemisphere, suggests a climatic response to the Katla eruption. Written historical sources from Europe and China corroborate our proposed tree ring–radiocarbon–ice core linkage but also point to combined effects of eruptions occurring during this period. Our study describes the oldest precisely dated, high-latitude eruption and reveals the impact of an extended phase of volcanic forcing in the early 9$^{th}$ century. It also provides insight into the existence of prehistoric woodland cover and the nature of volcanism several decades before Iceland's permanent settlement began. U. Büntgen received funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I; GN LO1415), and additional support was provided by NSF grant 0909541. We are particularly thankful to the NEEM project and its participants. Article in Journal/Newspaper Fennoscandia Greenland Greenland ice cores ice core Iceland Katla Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository Greenland Katla ENVELOPE(-19.062,-19.062,63.631,63.631) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcam |
language |
English |
topic |
37 Earth Sciences 3709 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience 3705 Geology 13 Climate Action |
spellingShingle |
37 Earth Sciences 3709 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience 3705 Geology 13 Climate Action Büntgen, U Eggertsson, Ó Wacker, L Sigl, M Ljungqvist, FC di Cosmo, N Plunkett, G Krusic, PJ Newfield, TP Esper, J Lane, C Reinig, F Oppenheimer, C Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
topic_facet |
37 Earth Sciences 3709 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience 3705 Geology 13 Climate Action |
description |
Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment, and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually resolved radiocarbon ($^{14}$C) measurements to isolate the 775 CE cosmogenic $^{14}$C peak in a subfossil birch tree that was buried by a glacial outburst flood in southern Iceland. We employ this absolute time marker to date a subglacial eruption of Katla volcano at late 822 CE to early 823 CE. We argue for correlation between the 822–823 CE eruption and a conspicuous sulfur anomaly evident in Greenland ice cores, which follows in the wake of an even larger volcanic signal (ca. 818–820 CE) as yet not attributed to a known eruption. An abrupt summer cooling in 824 CE, evident in tree-ring reconstructions for Fennoscandia and the Northern Hemisphere, suggests a climatic response to the Katla eruption. Written historical sources from Europe and China corroborate our proposed tree ring–radiocarbon–ice core linkage but also point to combined effects of eruptions occurring during this period. Our study describes the oldest precisely dated, high-latitude eruption and reveals the impact of an extended phase of volcanic forcing in the early 9$^{th}$ century. It also provides insight into the existence of prehistoric woodland cover and the nature of volcanism several decades before Iceland's permanent settlement began. U. Büntgen received funding from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the National Sustainability Program I (NPU I; GN LO1415), and additional support was provided by NSF grant 0909541. We are particularly thankful to the NEEM project and its participants. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Büntgen, U Eggertsson, Ó Wacker, L Sigl, M Ljungqvist, FC di Cosmo, N Plunkett, G Krusic, PJ Newfield, TP Esper, J Lane, C Reinig, F Oppenheimer, C |
author_facet |
Büntgen, U Eggertsson, Ó Wacker, L Sigl, M Ljungqvist, FC di Cosmo, N Plunkett, G Krusic, PJ Newfield, TP Esper, J Lane, C Reinig, F Oppenheimer, C |
author_sort |
Büntgen, U |
title |
Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
title_short |
Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
title_full |
Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
title_fullStr |
Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
title_full_unstemmed |
Multi-proxy dating of Iceland's major pre-settlement Katla eruption to 822-823 CE |
title_sort |
multi-proxy dating of iceland's major pre-settlement katla eruption to 822-823 ce |
publisher |
Geological Society of America |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266913 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11141 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-19.062,-19.062,63.631,63.631) |
geographic |
Greenland Katla |
geographic_facet |
Greenland Katla |
genre |
Fennoscandia Greenland Greenland ice cores ice core Iceland Katla |
genre_facet |
Fennoscandia Greenland Greenland ice cores ice core Iceland Katla |
op_relation |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266913 doi:10.17863/CAM.11141 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11141 |
_version_ |
1789965604381261824 |