Origin of the Worzel Deep-Sea Ash

Abstract

IN a recent paper¹, Worzel announced the discovery of an extensive ash deposit at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Ewing, Heezen and Ericson² have suggested in a companion paper that the deposit may well be of world-wide extent. If this should prove to be the case, the origin of the Worzel ash layer becomes a matter of extraordinary interest. The mass of a world-wide layer would be of the order of 1 × 10²⁰ gm., which exceeds by a factor of ∼ 300 the yield of the largest volcanic eruption recorded during historic times (Tambora, 1815). Moreover, the areal distribution of volcanic ash is usually quite limited². Worzel and Ewing et al. have therefore proposed the following events as possible sources of the ash: a single very large volcanic explosion, the simultaneous explosion of many volcanoes, a cometary collision, or some other catastrophic event involving bodies of cosmic origin.