Watch · Geology and volcanoes
The Volcanic Monster We Couldn't Find...Until Now
The Brief
- The source of a large, highly explosive eruption in 1831 CE, linked to famines and lower global temperatures, had long been unidentified.
- A team of scientists has identified the source as the Zavaritskii caldera on Simushir Island in the Kuril Islands, per the cited 2025 PNAS paper.
- The video discusses these findings and what remains unknown about the volcano.
Why watch · It identifies the origin of a major 19th-century eruption that affected famines and global climate, resolving a long-standing gap in the record.
- 1831 CE eruption
- Zavaritskii caldera
- Simushir Island
- Kuril Islands
Summarised by Claude from the video’s title and description – no transcript was available, so check the video for the details.
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The source of one of the largest volcanic eruptions during the last 200 years had long remained a mystery, despite the fact it triggered multiple deadly famines and lowered worldwide temperatures. That was, until now. A team of scientists has just discovered the source of the highly explosive 1831 CE mystery eruption, at an understudied remote volcano. This video will discuss these findings, and what we still do not know about the volcano in question. Thumbnail Photo Credit: (Image color saturation increased, brightness increased in darker and shadowed areas of the image from the original image by) McGimsey, R. G., Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey, https://avo.alaska.edu/image/view/66321. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border & the GeologyHub logo). Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers This video is protected under "fair use". If you see an image and/or video which is your own in this video, and/or think my discussion of a scientific paper (and/or discussion/mentioning of the data/information within a scientific paper) does not fall under the fair use doctrine, and wish for it to be censored or removed, contact me by email at geologyhubyt@gmail.com and I will make the necessary changes. Various licenses used in sections of this video (not the entire video, this video as a whole does not completely fall under one of these licenses) and/or in this video's thumbnail image (and this list does not include every license used in this video and/or thumbnail image): Public Domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode Sources/Citations: [1] W. Hutchison, P. Sugden, A. Burke, P. Abbott, V.V.Ponomareva, O. Dirksen, M.V. Portnyagin, B.MacInnes, J. Bourgeois, B. Fitzhugh, M. Verkerk, T.J. Aubry, S.L. Engwell, A. Svensson, N.J.Chellman, J.R. McConnell, S. Davies, M. Sigl, G.Plunkett, The 1831 CE mystery eruption identified as Zavaritskii caldera, Simushir Island (Kurils), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (1) e2416699122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2416699122 (2025). CC BY 4.0. [2] Akulichev, V. & Astakhov, A. & Malakhov, M. & Aksentov, Kirill & Karabtsov, A. & Mar’yash, A. & Alatortcev, Alexander. (2016). The first discovery of cryptotephra of