User:UNMls/Kuwae

Original

The Tongoa and Epi islands once formed part of a larger island called Kuwae. Local folklore tells of a cataclysmic eruption that split this island into two smaller islands with an oval 12 x 6 km caldera in between (but the story tells of an eruption south of Tongoa). Collapse associated with caldera formation may have been as much as 1100 m. Around 32–39 km³ of magma was erupted, making the Kuwae eruption one of the largest in the last 10,000 years.

In Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, a major eruption or series of eruptions is revealed as a spike in sulfate concentration, showing that the release in form of particles was higher than any other eruption since. Also, analysis of the ice cores pinpointed the event to late 1452 or early 1453. The volume of expelled matter is more than six times larger than that of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption and would have caused severe cooling of the entire planet the following three years. The link between the sulphur spike and the Kuwae caldera is questioned in a 2007 study by Károly Németh, et al. proposing the Tofua caldera as an alternative source candidate.

Article Draft
Kuwae is in the Coral Sea along the New Hebrides island arc.

Eruptive history[edit]
Eruption of 1452-1453

The island of Kuwae was partly destroyed in the eruption.  

Between 30 and 60 km^3 DRE (dense rock equivalent) of magma was ejected during the eruption.

The 1452 eruption contributed an estimated total of more than 100 Tg H2SO4 into the atmosphere.