Abstract
Our early ancestors were just spreading out of Africa and east across Asia when one of the most explosive volcanic eruptions on Earth in the last two million years took place at 73,880 years ago (with a margin of error of just a few centuries) in northern Sumatra. The scientific team who dated the event works on the hypothesis that the Toba eruption played a role in shaping human interactions, extinctions and dispersals in Asia and Australia, and has left a legacy of the eruption in our genes. Ancient philosophers were also awed by volcanoes and their fearsome eruptions of molten rock. In their efforts to explain volcanoes, they spun myths about a hot, hellish underworld below Earth’s surface and in early Christian society, the idea remained that volcanoes were the gateway to hell. In Roman mythology, Vulcan was the god of fire, volcanic eruptions, and the hearth and forge. He was the gods’ blacksmith, making arrows and shields for the deities and whenever a mountain erupted, it was said to be Vulcan pounding on his anvil. The god’s legacy remains as the modern name volcano is derived from the Latin name “Vulcanus”, and today means all mountains or hills that are built by lava and other erupted material. But volcanoes do not just occur anywhere, as we shall soon see.
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Scheffers, A.M., May, S.M., Kelletat, D.H. (2015). Volcanic Landforms. In: Landforms of the World with Google Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9713-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9713-9_2
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