Lake Toba- a super volcano erupted 75 000 years ago...

A place to discuss matters of bygone times that are forgotten, but are recovered so that humanity is no longer condemned to repeat history as it so often does.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
tom
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:52 am

Lake Toba- a super volcano erupted 75 000 years ago...

Post: # 6816Post tom »

Hi all,

I've just seen a documentary of National Geographic Channel, in which geologists and volcanologists (C.Chesner, J.Westgate,Rambino) show that 75000 years ago, there were a massive eruption of a super-volcano in Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia, that sent ashes 10 miles upto the sky. The ashes contained a large amount of sulphur, scattered all around the world, as far as South America and Greenland. The sulphur then associated with water to become sulphuric acid and destroyed almost all life on the planet.

Did that event have something related to the catastrophe described in "TP" page 46,47,48:

"Another, much bigger, hit where the Timor Sea is now, ...."
....
"Volcanoes erupted in Australia, New Guinea, Japan, South America - indeed, just about everywhere on the planet."
....
"In the three points of impact of the asteroids, thousands of volcanoes were created. Poisonous gases spread over most of the Australia continent, causing painless death within minutes."
....
"In brief, no city remained on Earth, and millions of people and animals had been wiped out."
....


For more info, check the following URL:
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~raman/Toba.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/volc_imag ... /toba.html
User avatar
Psi
Posts: 71
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:28 am
Location: Class M planet, outer Milky Way

Post: # 7587Post Psi »

Hi Tom,

No relation to the original asteroid (the figure is way out - the asteroid hit 30k years after the Bakaritians arrived which was 1.3 million years ago). But it does remind us that our poor old Earth has suffered a lot and, according to some, it's overdue for another shake-up.

If you do a Google, you'll discover the whole planet is scarred by ancient impacts. Everyone knows about Barringer in Arizona (arguably the most photographed - probably because it's in the US) but Australia has some beauties - one of the biggest is Goss Bluff near Alice Springs - I think the original impact site was something like 10-15 km wide. That would have to be on par with the three asteroid chunks that struck a million years ago.
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
~ Socrates
Post Reply