A team of scientists and medieval historians led by the University of Cambridge used memories of the largest lava flood in Iceland's history to record an apocalyptic medieval event, a new study shows. poem, which fueled Iceland's conversion to Christianity, using information from ice cores and tree rings to precisely date a volcanic eruption, which occurred shortly after the island was first settled.
Research Personnel date the eruption and discover Iceland's most famous medieval poem, which describes the end of pagan gods and the arrival of a new, bizarre god, describes the eruption and uses its memory to explain Christianity in Iceland
The results were published in the journal Climate Change. The 10th-century eruption of Mount Eldega is known as a lava flood: a rare, prolonged volcanic eruption in which huge flows of lava engulfed swamped the landscape, accompanied by plumes of sulfur gas.
Iceland specializes in this type of volcanic eruptions - the last eruption in 2015 affected air quality in Ireland, 1,400 kilometers away. Part of the southern Eldgar fissure.
Credit: Clive Oppenheimer The Eldgar lava flood affected southern Iceland within a century of being settled by Vikings and Celts for about 874, but so far the date of the eruption is uncertain, hampering investigation of its possible effects.
It was a massive event, measuring approximately 20 cubic kilometers Enough lava erupted to cover the ankles of England.
A Cambridge-led research team has dated the eruption using ice core records from Greenland that preserve fallout from Mount Eldgar. < /p>
Using clues in ice cores, researchers found that the eruption began in the spring of 939 and lasted until at least the fall of 940, erupting lava from Krafla, Iceland.
(public* **Field) Once they dated the Eldega eruption, the team then investigated its aftermath.
First, a haze of sulfite dust spread across Europe, during the same period The Irish, German and Italian chronicles are recorded as having an unusually blood-red and weakened sun, followed by a cooling of the climate as layers of dust reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, as is evident from tree rings in the Northern Hemisphere. < /p>
Evidence in tree rings suggests that volcanic eruptions triggered one of the coolest summers in the past 1,500 years.
"940, Central Europe, Scandinavia, Canada Summer cooling is most pronounced in the Rocky Mountains, Alaska and Central Asia, with average summer temperatures 2°C lower," says Professor Marcus Stoffel, co-author of the Helka eruption from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Geneva, from 16 Detail of a map of Iceland drawn by century mapmaker Abraham Ortelius.
(Public Domain) The team then looked at medieval chronicles to see how the cooling climate affected Society.
"This was a massive eruption, but we are still surprised by how rich the historical evidence is for the eruption's aftermath," said *** Co-author Dr. Tim Newfield , Department of History and Biology, Georgetown University Human suffering after the Eldgar incident was widespread.
From Northern Europe to northern China, people experienced long, harsh winters and severe spring and summer droughts .
Locust plagues and livestock die-offs.
Famine was not everywhere, but in the early 1940s we read of famine and huge deaths in parts of Germany, Iraq and China Number of people.
", but Iceland's most famous medieval poem, "The Prophet," seems to give the impression of a volcanic eruption.
The poem, which dates back to 961, foretells It marks the end of Iceland's pagan gods and the arrival of a new, unique god: in other words, Iceland's conversion to Christianity was formalized in the early 11th century.
Part of the poem describes a horrific event Eruptions, fiery explosions light up the sky The sun is obscured by thick clouds of ash and steam: Vesuvius erupts, with a Vi on an island in the Bay of Naples to the east, Joseph White of Derby, 1776
(Public Domain), the poem also describes the cold summer expected after a massive eruption, and researchers have compared these descriptions to the sights and effects of the Eldgar eruption To put this into context, the Eruption of Eldgar was the largest eruption in Iceland since its settlement.
The apocalyptic imagery of the poem marks the fiery end of the world of the Old Gods.
Researchers believe these lines in the poem may have been intended to revive painful memories of the volcanic eruption in order to counteract the massive religious and cultural shifts that occurred in Iceland in the last decades of the 10th century.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in December 1820.
(Public domain) This article was originally titled "Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland's conversion to Christianity" and was originally published in Science Daily .
, Source: University of Cambridge.
"Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland to convert to Christianity.
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"Science Daily", March 19, 2018.
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