Supervolcano eruptions may not spell doom for humanity

摘要

Supervolcano eruptions can be massively powerful, but they may not be as devastating to human life as previously believed, according to a new study. The subject of the research Is a supervolcano eruption about 74,000 years ago on the present-day Indonesian Island of Sumatra. It was the biggest volcanic event of the past 2 million years, and scientists have long thought It sparked a volcanic winter and left humanity on the verge of extinction. But the study, published Monday In the journal Nature, uses a soil analysis to make the case that humans survived and even thrived In the aftermath of the eruption. "These were dramatic theories," said Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who was not involved in the study. "They were very popular — both in the scientific world, but also in the public imagination."