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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Submerged volcano’s eruption was the biggest since the last ice age

Some 7,300 years ago, the Kikai volcano in Japan produced up to 457 cubic kilometres of ash and other debris.
An aerial photo of a small island. At the far end is a mountain emitting gas and smoke.

A Japanese island preserves part of the caldera of the Kikai volcano, which was behind the biggest eruption of the Holocene epoch. Credit: Associated Press/Alamy

Volcanologists have discovered that an eruption unleashed 7,300 years ago by a volcano in the waters of southwest Japan was the biggest of our current geological epoch1.

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Nature 627, 11 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00565-z

References

  1. Shimizu, S. et al. J. Volcan. Geotherm. Res. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2024.108017 (2024).

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