Of Two Minds About Toba's Impact

摘要

About 74,000 years ago, Mount Toba on the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupted in the most cataclysmic volcanic event of the past 2 million years. An estimated 2800 cubic kilometers of magma spewed forth, at least 2000 times that ejected during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Wind-blown volcanic ash spread thousands of kilometers across Asia, blocking sunlight and triggering what some researchers have called a global "volcanic winter."