1452/1453 mystery eruption

rdf:langString 1452/1453 mystery eruption

rdf:langString The 1452/1453 mystery eruption is one of two large, not definitively assigned, volcanic eruptions that took place in the 1450s with the second being the 1458 mystery eruption. At present, there is evidence that assigns both to having taken place at Kuwae, Vanuatu though there is also evidence that the latter may not have been from Kuwae. In Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, a major eruption (or series of eruptions) is clearly evident as a sudden spike in sulfate concentration, showing that the release in form of particles was higher than any other eruption series since. Initial analysis of the ice cores and comparison with climate records assigned the event to 1452–1453. Some studies have assigned the largest eruption at about this time in the ice core series to 1458 but composition studies suggest that the latter eruption may not have been from Kuwae. The 1452–1453 eruption could also have been in a northern hemisphere location yet to be determined, but platinium is widely distributed in sediments worldwide as happens with a very large eruption. The link between the sulphur spike and the Kuwae caldera was first questioned in a 2007 study by Károly Németh, et al. proposing the Tofua caldera as an alternative source candidate. Both eruptions have now been shown to cause mutual volcanic winters, the period 1452–1453 correlating with tree ring and other historic records, and the period 1458–1464 also correlating with tree ring evidence. The 1458 mystery eruption was first assigned to 1465 in an earlier work partially due to unusual atmospheric events during the 1465 wedding of Alfonso II of Naples. The volume of expelled matter in the two eruptions that is detected in the ice core record in both the northern and southern hemispheres is more than six times larger than that of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.