Hekla 3 eruption

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Hekla 3 eruption
Volcano Hekla
Date Circa 1000 BC
Type Plinian
Location Iceland
63°59′N 19°42′W / 63.983°N 19.700°W / 63.983; -19.700Coordinates: 63°59′N 19°42′W / 63.983°N 19.700°W / 63.983; -19.700
VEI 5
Impact Caused worldwide temperatures to drop for 18 years
Hekla
Hekla on the map of Iceland

The Hekla 3 eruption (H-3) circa 1000 BC is considered the most severe eruption of Hekla during the Holocene.[1] It threw about 7.3 km3 of volcanic rock into the atmosphere,[2] placing its Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) at 5. This would have cooled temperatures in the northern parts of the globe for a few years afterwards.

An eighteen-year span of climate worsening is recorded in Irish bog oaks, and H-3 was blamed for it.[3][4]

The eruption is detectable in Greenland ice-cores, the bristlecone pine sequence, and the Irish oak sequence of extremely narrow growth rings. Baker's team dated it to 1021 + 130/-100 BC.[5]

Baker preferred a "high chronology" (earlier) interpretation of these results. In Sutherland, northwest Scotland, a spurt of four years of doubled annual luminescent growth banding of calcite in a stalagmite is datable to 1135 ± 130 BC.[6] A rival, "low-chronology" interpretation of the eruption comes from Dugmore, 2879 BP = 929 BC ± 34.[7]

In 1999 Dugmore suggested a non-volcanic explanation for the Scottish results.[8] In 2000 skepticism concerning conclusions about connecting Hekla 3 and Hekla 4 eruptions with paleoenvironmental events and archaeologically attested abandonment of settlement sites in northern Scotland was expressed by John P. Grattan and David D. Gilbertson.[9]

Some Egyptologists in 1999 firmly dated the eruption to 1159 BC and blamed it for famines under Ramesses III during the wider Bronze Age collapse.[10] Dugmore dismissed this notion and maintains his dating to this day.[11] Other scholars have held off on this dispute, preferring the neutral and vague "3000 BP".[12]

References

  1. ↑ Eiríksson, Jón; et al. (2000). "Chronology of late Holocene climatic events in the northern North Atlantic based on AMS 14C dates and tephra markers from the volcano Hekla, Iceland". Journal of Quaternary Science 15 (6): 573–580. Bibcode:2000JQS....15..573E. doi:10.1002/1099-1417(200009)15:6<573::AID-JQS554>3.0.CO;2-A. 
  2. ↑ "Hekla". Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1702-07%3D.
  3. ↑ Baillie, Mike (1989). "Hekla 3: how big was it?". Endeavour. New series 13 (2): 78–81. doi:10.1016/0160-9327(89)90006-9. 
  4. ↑ Baillie, Mike (1989). "Do Irish bog oaks date the Shang dynasty?". Current archaeology 10: 310–313. 
  5. ↑ Baker, Andy; et al. (1995). "The Hekla 3 volcanic eruption recorded in a Scottish speleothem?". The Holocene 5 (3): 336–342. doi:10.1177/095968369500500309. 
  6. ↑ Dated by uranium-thorium thermal ionization mass spectrometry to 1135 ± 130 BC in Baker, Andy; et al. (1995). "The Hekla 3 volcanic eruption recorded in a Scottish speleothem?". The Holocene 5 (3): 336–342. doi:10.1177/095968369500500309. 
  7. ↑ Dugmore, AJ; G. T. Cook, J. S. Shore, A. J. Newton, K. J. Edwards and Gu�r�n Larsen (1995). "Radiocarbon Dating Tephra Layers in Britain and Iceland". Radiocarbon 37 (2). 
  8. ↑ Andrew Dugmore, Geriant Coles, Paul Buckland, "A Scottish speleothem record of the H-3 eruption or human impact? A comment on Baker, Smart, Barnes, Edwards and Farrant" The Holocene 9.4 501-503 (1999).
  9. ↑ Grattan; Gilbertson (2000). "Prehistoric 'settlement crisis', environmental changes in the British Isles, and volcanic eruptions in Iceland: An explorarion of plausible linkages". In McCoy, Floyd W.; Heiken, Grant. Volcanic Hazards and Disasters in Human Antiquity. GSA Special Paper 345. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America. ISBN 0-8137-2345-0. 
  10. ↑ Yurco, Frank J. (1999). "End of the Late Bronze Age and Other Crisis Periods: A Volcanic Cause". In Teeter, Emily; Larson, John (eds.). Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 58. Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago. pp. 456–458. ISBN 1-885923-09-0. 
  11. ↑ Late Holocene solifluction history reconstructed using tephrochronology, Martin P. Kirkbride & Andrew J. Dugmore, Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2005; v. 242; p. 145-155.
  12. ↑ TOWARDS A HOLOCENE TEPHROCHRONOLOGY FOR SWEDEN, Stefan WastegÅrd, XVI INQUA Congress, Paper No. 41-13, Saturday, July 26, 2003.
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