The Toba Eruption

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Gary Arndt

Education, History

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

74,000 years ago, the Earth suffered the greatest natural disaster that it has seen in the last several million years. A supervolcano erupted in what is today the country of Indonesia. In addition to completely changing the Earth’s climate for years, it may have pushed a species known as Homo Sapiens to the brink of extinction. Learn more about the Toba Eruption and how it might have almost spelled the end for humanity on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Expedition Unknown Find out the truth behind popular, bizarre legends. Expedition Unknown, a podcast from Discovery, chronicles the adventures of Josh Gates as he investigates unsolved iconic stories across the globe. With direct audio from the hit TV show, you’ll hear Gates explore stories like the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in the South Pacific and the location of Captain Morgan's treasure in Panama. These authentic, roughshod journeys help Gates separate fact from fiction and learn the truth behind these compelling stories. InsideTracker provides a personal health analysis and data-driven wellness guide to help you add years to your life—and life to your years. Choose a plan that best fits your needs to get your comprehensive biomarker analysis, customized Action Plan, and customer-exclusive healthspan resources. For a limited time, Everything Everywhere Daily listeners can get 20% off InsideTracker’s new Ultimate Plan. Visit InsideTracker.com/eed. Subscribe to the podcast! https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	74,000 years ago, the Earth suffered the greatest natural disaster that it's seen in the last several million years.
0:06.0	A supervolcano erupted in what is today the country of Indonesia.
0:10.0	In addition to completely changing the Earth's climate for years, it may have pushed a species known as Homo sapiens to the brink of extinction.
0:18.0	Learn more about the Toba eruption and how it might have almost spelled the end of humanity on this episode of
0:24.0	everything everywhere daily. I've talked about several different volcanoes and volcanic eruptions in previous episodes.
0:46.0	However, none of them come close, not even within an order of magnitude, to the eruption that I'll be talking about in this episode.
0:53.4	To put things into perspective there is a scale known as the Volcanic
0:57.8	explosives index or VEI which measures the power of volcanic explosions. The VEI is a logarithmic scale, so each
1:06.0	unit on the scale is 10 times greater than what came before it. The current eruption of
1:11.6	Mount Etna in Sicily or the 2019 eruption on White Island in New Zealand
1:16.1	ranks a two on the VEI.
1:18.9	The 1997 Sufriere Hill's eruption on the island of Moncerrat that caused two-thirds of the island to be permanently
1:24.4	evacuated, ranks a three.
1:27.3	The 2010 Eefiatra Yachaf tall eruption in Iceland, which caused a shutdown in international air travel, ranks of four.
1:35.3	The Mount Vesuvius eruption in the year 79 that destroyed Pompeii, the 1980 Mount St Helens
1:40.0	eruption and the 2022 eruption of the Hungatonga, Hunga Ha-Haapai volcano all only rank a five on the
1:46.8	VE. I. The 1883 eruption of Mount Krakatoa and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines both rank a six.
1:55.0	Finally, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, on which I've done a previous episode,
2:01.0	and which was the greatest volcanic eruption in recorded
2:04.2	human history ranks a seven. There are however eruptions that are even more
2:09.7	powerful than what was seen in Mount Tambora. These eruptions are known as supervolcanoes.
2:15.2	They are not only the most powerful of all volcanic eruptions, but they are also
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