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Scientists refute the cause of cooling in Europe 13,000 years ago
Kyiv • UNN
The eruption of the Laager See volcano occurred 150 years earlier than thought and did not cause a cold snap in Europe. This is confirmed by new studies of the speleotheme from the Herbstlabyrinth cave and ice cores from Greenland.
A devastating volcanic eruption in what is now Germany was not associated with a significant drop in temperature. The combination of data from two natural climate archives - a dripstone from the Herbstlabyrinth cave in Hesse and ice cores from Greenland - provides new insights into the chronology of abrupt climate change in Central Europe 13,000 years ago.
Transmits UNN with reference to Science Advances.
Details
According to the analysis, the devastating eruption of the Laacher See volcano in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate occurred earlier than previously thought and therefore could not have caused a sudden cold period in Central Europe, approximately 13,000 years ago.
The latest eruption of the Laach volcano is considered one of the most destructive events in the last two million years, with impacts as far away as northern Italy, Scandinavia and Russia. For a long time, it was believed that there could be a direct link between this incident and the sudden cooling and the so-called Younger Dryas period - but this is, at the same time, a subject of scientific debate.
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In 2021, a new chronology was created using radiocarbon dating of stumps. The results show that the volcanic eruption should have occurred about 130 years earlier than previously thought.
A research team from Heidelberg and Mainz was able to confirm this new date using a speleotheme from the Herbstlabyrinth cave in Breitscheid, Hesse.
Since volcanic eruptions are associated with large sulfur emissions, this volcanic signal should also be present in the speleotheme.
High-resolution measurements of sulfur and oxygen isotopes made by the ion probe in Heidelberg were key to this determination
The new geochemical data can be synchronized with a previously unidentified sulfate peak in Greenland ice cores.
The statistical analysis was performed under the supervision of Professor Dr. Denis Scholz, an expert in determining the age of historical climate fluctuations at the Institute of Earth Sciences.
The synchronization is a breakthrough in dating climate and environmental archives, as no absolutely datable time marker was previously known before the abrupt cooling
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The new age determination shows that the eruption occurred about 150 years before the cold period of the Late Dryas.
Thus, this excludes a causal link between the volcanic eruption and abrupt climate change
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