Toba supereruption: age and impact on East African ecosystems

Authors

Richard G. Roberts, University of WollongongFollow
Michael Storey, Roskilde UniversityFollow
Michael Haslam, University of Oxford

RIS ID

82101

Publication Details

Roberts, R. G., Storey, M. & Haslam, M. (2013). Toba supereruption: age and impact on East African ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, 110 (33), E3047-E3047.

Abstract

Lane et al. (1) recovered microscopic glass shards (cryptotephra) from a thin layer of sediment deposited in Lake Malawi and chemically characterized them as volcanic ash (Youngest Toba Tuff, YTT) from the Toba "supereruption" in Sumatra. The authors found no evidence of significant climate change at multidecadal to millennial timescales in the sedimentary record, and in their report conclude that the eruption distributed ash much more widely than previously documented but did not trigger a volcanic winter or human bottleneck in East Africa. Although the YTT event had limited impact on ecosystems around Lake Malawi, we think Lane et al.