VEILA · Identifying the source of unknown volcanic eruptions in Late Antiquity
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-02-01 → 2021-03-09
- EU contribution
- €183,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Identifying the source of unknown volcanic eruptions in Late Antiquity
It has been suggested that extended cooling episodes known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA, 6th-7th centuries) and Little Ice Age (LIA, 15th-19th centuries) contributed to major societal reorganisations across Eurasia, such as human migrations, spread and demise of empires and political upheavals. If correct, there is now evidence to implicate volcanism in the triggering of two episodes of centennial-scale cooling (LALIA and LIA) and societal impact in the Northern hemisphere during the Holocene. However, most of the sources of these eruptions remain to date, unknown. This project aimed to locate and characterise tephra in polar ice and equatorial sediment cores and correlate them to possible volcanic sources of Holocene eruptions in order to constrain the role of volcanism in centennial-scale climate forcing. The methodologically innovative strategies in tephrochronology developed in this framework aimed to correlate polar ice core records to an annually-layered tropical palaeoclimate record for the first time. This will be a crucial proof-of-concept for future studies, further back in time, that may address the timing and mechanisms of global climate teleconnections within such a precisely-dated framework. The results of the proposed research will provide a better understanding of the role of volcanism in centennial-scale climate forcing during the Holocene, giving insights into the impacts of future eruptions on our societies already dealing with the consequences of climate change. This project aimed to locate and characterise tephra in polar ice and equatorial sediment cores and correlate them to possible volcanic sources of key eruptions in order to constrain the role of volcanism in centennial-scale climate forcing during the Holocene. The outputs will provide insights into the impacts of future eruptions on our societies already dealing with the consequences of climate change.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Volcanism has shaped the human trajectory as a result of the regional impacts of ash deposition and through global climate change caused by stratospheric veils of volcanic sulphate aerosols. Volcanic forcing of climate is suspected to be implicated in centennial scale climatic cooling during the Common Era, notably in triggering the Little Ice Age (LIA, circa 1300-1850 CE), and the shorter but cooler Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA, circa 530-680 CE). The latter episode would have contributed to major societal reorganisations that occurred across Eurasia, including the rise and demise of empires, migrations and political upheavals. The LALIA coincides with a series of large volcanic eruptions of unknown source, only identified by sulphur-rich horizons in polar ice cores, left by aerosols trapped in the ice after dispersal through the high atmosphere. This project aims to locate the volcanic sources of these unknown 6th and 7th century eruptions, by characterising and correlating their geochemical fingerprints in global archives, including Antarctic and Arctic ice cores and equatorial lake sediment cores. An interdisciplinary approach at the interface of glaciology, tephrochronology, dendrochronology, and climatology will be used to extract and analyse micrometric particles of far-travelled ashes and to identify correlations between different the samples and potentially to identify the source. The results of the proposed research will provide methodological advances of wider interest to tephrochronologists, and will facilitate modelling of the climate impacts of these eruptions. The outputs will provide a better understanding of the role of volcanism in centennial scale climate cooling during the Common Era, and inform the extent to which volcanism and associated climate forcing played a role in Eurasian history in the Late Antique period. They will also be relevant to understanding the potential impacts of future temporal clustering of climate-forcing eruptions.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union