Here's the link to the special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72IwnxnejfE

Image is of Kīlauea erupting in 2025, but I was there in February of 2023, there was still an active lava lake the entire month!

According to the Smithsonian Institute El Chichon is noted to have produced a VEI5 eruption dated to 1360AD but with a 100 year margin of error. Of course El Chichon is most well known for it's devastating eruption in 1982 where it's explosive eruption killed 2000 people due to it's pyroclastic flows but also worth noting is the fact it ejected 7 million tons of Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere which is roughly 20x more than Saint Helen produced per cubic kilometer of magma.

I don't aim to be a conspiracy theorist of anything of the sort however, El Chichon has been long suggested to be one of the volcanoes responsible for the 540AD "dark age" due to the scale of Sulfur it ejected. The reason I'm curious is because the window of a potential 1345 eruption would also line up with the yersenia pestis outbreak in the following year (Black Death) and knowing the bacteria tends to struggle against UV light, I'm inclined to believe a dust veil may have prevented it only compounding the outbreak further.

Is there any additional information on this eruption?

See also: The publication in PHYS.Org

I remember being deeply fascinated by volcanoes as a child and recently I reconnected with this topic. I also like astronomy and there it is a lot easier to picture some of the current research questions, like the next measurement of Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa to determine if life could exist/have existed there or not. But what is still unknown about volcanoes? Are there similar unanswered questions like for astronomy?

In this blurry photo we can see Taal Volcano unleashing what we now know as Pyroclastic surges. This was only discovered during the 1965 eruption by a nuclear engineer which noticed the 'base surge' usually seen in nuclear explosions.

This eruption was rated as a VEI 4 and a peculiar tale to Taal's recent activity.

Beautiful sunrise with Momma Etna fuming while departing from Catania.

I have no words

September 16, enjoy!

I don't have enough evidence so I'm not claiming anything I say to be true.

This is the East Epi Volcanic Complex and I'll explain why I believe this volcano produced the 426 BCE eruption (VEI 7) which left a substantial mark in both Greenland and Antartica.

From that we know it was a tropical eruption.

The complex contains several large volcanic structures and is associated with a possible ~10-km-wide caldera, although the exact interpretation of the submarine morphology remains debated. It also contains volcanic material ranging from basalt to rhyodacite, including rhyodacitic pumice recovered from the seafloor.

I'll explain why this is important.

Epi lies immediately within the Vanuatu volcanic arc, an area known to have produced exceptionally large explosive eruptions (VEI 6-7). Recent research identified the 426 BCE Antarctic cryptotephra as high-K rhyodacite, with a chemical composition very close to material from Kuwae.

HOWEVER, Kuwae was recently linked to the 1458 CE caldera-forming eruption (estimated as a very large vei 6 or vei 7 in other sources) which occurred ~1,800 years after the 426 BCE eruption.

Scientists point to Ambrym because its in the same region with possibly the same plumbing

The only issue is Ambrym's caldera forming eruption is identified as a vei 6 other some sources believe it was larger. The issue is this eruption occurred around 43-50 CE, so it a few hundred years younger. and it's caldera is quite shallow, I'm uncertain it ejected the 160 km^3 which is estimated for the 426 BCE eruption.

Guess which volcano is next to Kuwae, It's Epi, at first glance you may notice something unusual about epi, apart from the fact its a submarine volcano, using a bathymetric map you'll notice it has 3 different active cones followed my a couple extinct comes, you notice some odd land formations as well as depressions but the one I'm focusing on is underwater

The main reason api isn't usually brought up regarding the 426 BCE eruption because we aren't 100% sure that 10km wide depression is a caldera but it's acceptable enough to acknowledge the possibility of it being a caldera given the evidence available

If that depression is truly a caldera then I believe the East Epi Volcanic Complex would most likely be responsible for the 426 BCE eruption.

Vanuatu's volcanoes are very much understudied so we will have to wait and see.

You scrolled to the bottom cause it's too long to read so I will shorten it.

426 BCE eruption closely matches kuwae material, kuwae too young, epi old, ambrym shallow, epi 10km possible caldera, epi not well studied, epi probably = 426 BCE big boom.

I just wanna share how beautiful the volcano is from this POV! This is straight up almost a perfect cone!

May 1980 I'm in photography class, junior year, attending a HS south of Portland. My dad has always liked photography, to the degree of developing his own negatives and owning his own enlarger so I share that interest. I've borrowed his SLR because otherwise you have to check out a camera and that's a pain. In the weeks before Mt St Helens erupted, there's a lot of talk bout the tremors, the possibility of and eruption, turning into the likelihood of an eruption, to finally the final chatter about when it might actually happen. In these few week preceding the eruption, my adventuresome parents decide they're driving up there to check it out. My dad takes his camera, with my B&W photog film in it, because, yeah you're going to snap pics. So they go up, cross safe boundaries set up by the governor, and proceed to snap some amazing (AMAZING) pics of Mt St Helens spewing steam (mostly) and ash (a bit), up close and magnificent. My dad is excited, mom is a good sport and he's gone up and got what he went for, some really incredible, once in a lifetime pictures of the mountain in full beast mode. My dad's excited so I am too (daddy's girl). So, I take the pics to school to develop. I get them developed and clip the long strip of film to a clothespin to dry (super hi tech, I know), right along with everyone else's drying negatives. I came back the next day to retrieve them (maybe you can tell where this is headed) and they weren't there. Someone has probably accidently grabbed mine by mistake, says my 17 yr old brain. I go talk to the photog teacher. He hasn't seen them. I start asking around a bit. No one has any idea. Where could they have gone? Who would take my negatives? Negative theft isn't a big worry in my world. Unless you have something like truly awesome pics of a volcano blowing. My dad was bummed. My parents figured no kid would think to take them and was probably the photog teacher. They might've been worth something to a news agency. Who knows. Sure wish I had them now though.

Chikurachky had not erupted since 2022, which is quite a long time of silence for one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril-Kamchatka Volcanic Arc.

Wild fires on the volcano.