Huge eruption led to crop failure and climate change
THE rise of the Roman Empire was sparked by a huge volcanic eruption 6,000 miles away in the Arctic, according to new research.
Alaska’s Mount Okmok blew its top in 43BC triggering climate change, famine and disease .
The discovery published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is based on an analysis of volcanic ash, or tephra, from ice cores.
An international team – including academics in Ireland – linked the spell of extreme cold in the Mediterranean to the eruption, known as Okmok II.
It was one of the biggest of the last 2,500 years – creating a vast six-mile crater. Okmok is still active, last blowing in 2008.
Co-author Dr Gill Plunkett, an archaeologist at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “The tephra match doesn’t get any better.
“We compared the chemical fingerprint of the tephra found in the ice with tephra from volcanoes thought to have erupted about that time.
“It was very clear the source of the 43BC fallout in the ice was the Okmok II eruption.”
When a volcano erupts it spews out a mass of dust and particles that can travel the globe, blocking out the sun and quickly cooling the earth.
Records from around 43BC describe a period of unusually cold weather.
A volcano was long suspected but its location and severity remained a mystery. Now the unlikely source is Okmok. Co-author Dr Andrew Wilson, a classical archaeologist at Oxford University, said: “In the Mediterranean, these wet and extremely cold conditions during the agriculturally important spring through autumn seasons probably reduced crop yields and compounded supply problems during ongoing political upheaval.
“The findings lend credibility to reports of cold, famine and disease described by ancient sources.”
Co-author and Yale historian Dr Joe Manning added: “The climate effects were a severe shock to an already stressed society.”
Mount Okmok
Scorch marks on the tree sculpture