Prehistoric Volcano Devastated Earth, page 1

Prehistoric Volcano Devastated Earth

news.aol.com

Dec. 3) -- A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a new study that adds evidence to a controversial topic.
The Toba eruption, which took place on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia about 73,000 years ago, released an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere that blanketed the skies and blocked out sunlight for six years. In the aftermath, global temperatures dropped by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit and life on Earth plunged deeper into an i

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I ran across this article this morning in the Science Section on AOL News and felt some of the ATS Members might enjoy reading about it.

Quite a few members here on ATS believe that sometime in the ancient past India was devastated by a possible nuclear war. Many believe that India’s ancient society was technologically advanced and that we as a species are in a reoccurring cycle of creating technically evolved civilizations that eventually end up destroying themselves.

A lot of members think that cataclysm also led to the destruction of Atlantis.

This 70,000 year old massive volcanic eruption on Sumatra fits the time line and could possible be a more natural explanation as opposed to a technological explanation of what happened back then.

If Atlantis existed this could have very well been the event that destroyed it.


news.aol.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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I remember reading about the super volcano beneath Lake Toba ... that was/is supposed to be on a par with Yellowstone.

I guess this must be one and the same. Very interesting I hope there will be others come forward with more information.

Thanks for this. Woody

reply to post by woodwytch

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It is fascinating how fragile the ecosystem really is. When my maternal grandfather was a small boy in the early 1900's the meteor that devestate a huge portion of the Siberian timber land in Russia kicked up such a cloud of dust and debris that it was almost a year before the sun showed reguarly again.

Life as we know it really can change pretty darn quick!

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by wayno

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Thanks for posting that information Wayno. I would like to read that thread.

Ancient nuclear wars, passing stray planets on a collision course, super volcanos all make for an interesting take on an event that clearly happened some how some way!

Originally posted by wayno
Ironically, I've just been reading excerpts from the Kolbrin (there is a thread on here about this), ancient writings pre-dating the Old Testament, and they describe an ancient fire and brimstone event with falling hot rocks and embers.

While there was a suggestion that the passing of Nibiru back then set off the calamity, this super volcano could just as well be the event that the ancients are recalling in their stories.

This is old,b ut fits with your idea. I don't know if any more research has been done or not.

Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
13 November 2001
www.space.com...

-- An account of the Deluge from the Epic of Gilgamesh, circa 2200 B.C.
If you are fortunate enough to see the storm of shooting stars predicted for the Nov. 18 peak of the Leonid meteor shower, you'll be watching a similar but considerably less powerful version of events which some scientists say brought down the world's first civilizations.
The root of both: debris from a disintegrating comet.
Biblical stories, apocalyptic visions, ancient art and scientific data all seem to intersect at around 2350 B.C., when one or more catastrophic events wiped out several advanced societies in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Increasingly, some scientists suspect comets and their associated meteor storms were the cause. History and culture provide clues: Icons and myths surrounding the alleged cataclysms persist in cults and religions today and even fuel terrorism.
And a newly found 2-mile-wide crater in Iraq, spotted serendipitously in a perusal of satellite images, could provide a smoking gun. The crater's discovery, which was announced in a recent issue of the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, is a preliminary finding. Scientists stress that a ground expedition is needed to determine if the landform was actually carved out by an impact.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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Wow it must have been amazing to here about such an event firsthand from your grandfather.

And I quite agree life as we know it can be changed forever in the blink of an eye.

The super volcanoes in particular hold a fascination for me ... because they (particularly Yellowstone) would have the strength to set off a whole chain of events.

Woody

reply to post by woodwytch

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Its fascinating to think when events like these have occured throughout history in civilizations that didn't have rapid communication what people must have thought when ash started raining down from the sky or the sun stopped shining.

The other interesting thing to contemplate is how such cataclysmic events might have played into people's need to formulate religions and deities to make sense of such things in their minds.

reply to post by Pauligirl

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Thanks for sharing that Pauligirl. This could end up being a great thread that pulls together a lot of fascinating information from a myriad of different sources and theories.

I will enjoy reading more on this subject of ancient texts.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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Absolutely !

People in times gone by must have been terrified ... no wonder we often hear the term 'God-fearing'.

I'm also one of these people who swings towards the idea that civilization (as we understand it), has had several starts ... just seems logical when we consider how volotile our planet has been throughout history.

This hypothesis would also go some way to explaining how pocket of people became civilized whilst others were still living as savages. Maybe the civilized sets had survivors from pre-cataclysm to guide them forward.

Just a thought !

And if so I wonder how that would pan out if something of this scale were to happen now ?

As I said in a previous post I find this subject fascinating and thought-provoking.

Woody


jjjtir ... I'd love to read the full article. Thanks in advance

[edit on 6-12-2009 by woodwytch]

reply to post by woodwytch

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This hypothesis would also go some way to explaining how pocket of people became civilized whilst others were still living as savages. Maybe the civilized sets had survivors from pre-cataclysm to guide them forward.

That is very thought provoking when one stops to ponder those possibilities.

It certainly would explain a lot in how some civilizations evolved at far more rapid paces than others.

Great observation Woody!

Abstract

Fulltext PDF

Environmental impact of the 73 ka Toba super-eruption in South Asia

It is packed full of graphs and tables.

It also challenges the status quo. Brief quote from Discussion section.

Small numbers of Middle Palaeolithic artifacts from gravels and sands stratified below and above a thick bed of ash in south India have been interpreted as demonstrating insignificant impacts of Toba on terrestrial environments and human adaptations in India (Petraglia et al., 2007).

Our results challenge this conclusion because they show that the Toba eruption led to prolonged drought and deforestation in India, probably lasting for 1000–2000 years.

Cooling arising from the Toba super-eruption is considered responsible for the extreme cold of ice core stadial 20 (Zielinski et al., 1996) and is supported by our work.

reply to post by jjjtir

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Thanks for posting that jjjtir, that makes a great addition to this thread.

I am really looking forward to reading it all.

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