Z is for Zavaritskii

 

Scientists always enjoy solving a mystery. In this case, the mystery was a year of cooler weather in 1831, similar to what followed the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 that caused the ensuing "Year Without a Summer".

The problem was, no documentation or reports of a massive eruption that year (or the year prior) existed. 

So the scientists (geologists, volcanologists) kept looking, and they finally found evidence of an eruption at the right time. The volcano, as you might surmise, is named Zavaritskii.

The Mystery of the 1831 Volcanic Eruption Solved

"Dr Hutchison and his team were able to accurately date and match the ice core deposits to Zavaritskii volcano on the remote, uninhabited island of Simushir, part of the Kuril Islands. The islands are a disputed territory between Russia and Japan. Currently controlled by Russia, they operate as a strategic military outpost. During the Cold War, in a plotline reminiscent of a Bond film, the Soviets used Simushir as a secret nuclear submarine base, docking vessels in a flooded volcanic crater.

“We analysed the chemistry of the ice at a very high temporal resolution. This allowed us to pinpoint the precise timing of the eruption to spring-summer 1831, confirm that it was highly explosive, and then extract the tiny shards of ash. Finding the match took a long time and required extensive collaboration with colleagues from Japan and Russia, who sent us samples collected from these remote volcanoes decades ago.

“The moment in the lab when we analysed the two ashes together, one from the volcano and one from the ice core, was a genuine eureka moment. I couldn’t believe the numbers were identical. After this, I spent a lot of time delving into the age and size of the eruption in Kuril records to truly convince myself that the match was real.”

Like a lighthouse, here's the location of Zavaritskii.

Two pictures, one from space and one from the ground, are shown below. It looks like a remarkable place to visit, and that's not a visit that very many people get to make.