This 1783 Volcanic Eruption Changed The Course Of History
"The sun fades away, the land sinks into the sea,
the bright stars disappear from the sky,
as smoke and fire destroy the world,
and the flames reach the sky."
- A description of The End of the World according to the "Völuspa," a collection of Icelandic myths
Volcanoes are not an unusual sight on Iceland, but the eruption that began on June 8, 1783 in the southern district of Síða was something that had never seen before. During the next eight months, an estimated 14 km³ (about 3.7 quadrillion gallons) of lava poured out from 135 fissures near the town of Klaustur. The lava from the fissures ended up covering an estimated 2,500 km² (965 sq mi) of land, which threatened to overrun not only many farms, but also the entire town.
Fortunately, the lava flows stopped in time, ending the danger. So it seemed, anyway.
It tuned out, however, that the lava wasn't the only threat to Iceland. Volcanic ash from the eruptionwas carried away by the wind and poisoned the land and sea. Animals suddenly developed "ridges" and "growths" on their legs. Observers also noted they became "bloated" and their mouths swelled. This "pestilence" - a severe fluorine-intoxication from the ash - killed half of the Icelandic cattle population and a quarter of the sheep and horse population.
Nothing would grow on the fields and no more fish could be found in the sea. If not protected from the ash, food and water became poisonous.
The pastor and self-taught naturalist of Klaustur, Jón Steingrímsson, described the unfolding distaster:
Those people who did not have enough older and undiseased supplies of food to last them through these times of pestilence also suffered great pain.
In the resulting plague and famine from 1783-1784, an estimated nine thousand people -one-fifth of the population of Iceland -died.
But the Laki eruption, as this new formed chain of volcanoes was named, had possibly even more widespread effects (even if at the time there were no airlines). In the months after the eruption, a strange haze covered the sky above Europe, making breathing difficult. As the ash and gases from the eruption entered the high layers of the atmosphere, they adsorbed moisture and sunlight, changing the climate for years to come.
From 1783 to 1785 accounts from both Japan and America describe terrible droughts, exceptional cold winters and disastrous floods. In Europe, the exceptionally hot summer of 1783 was followed by long and harsh winters. The resulting crop failures may have triggered one of the most famous insurrections of starving people in history, the French Revolution of 1789-1799.
It's a sobering reminder that destructive changes to the environment can have long-lasting and far-reaching impacts, even from hundreds of miles away.
Iceland and some of its volcanoes, from the "Physical Atlas" by Heinrich Berghaus (1838-48). Red dots are active volcanoes, rose are the regions covered by basaltic lava. Below an image of the famous Eyjafjallajökull. Its ash clouds, despite not causing widespread famine and pestilence, had still a great impact on our modern society.
Interested in reading more? Try:
BOER, de J.Z. & SANDERS, D.T. (2004): Das Jahr ohne Sommer. Die großen Vulkanausbrüche der Menschheitsgeschichte und ihre Folgen. Magnus-Verlag, Essen: 269
DAVIS, L. (2008): Natural Disasters. Facts on File Sience Library. Infobase Publishing: 464
WITZE, A. & KANIPE, J. (2014): Island on Fire: The extraordinary story of Laki, the volcano that turned eighteenth-century Europe dark. Profile-Books: 224
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