Impacts of the mid-15th century eruption at Kuwae caldera, Vanuatu (original) (raw)

Abstract

In the AD 1450s, one of the three largest climate-forcing eruptions of the largest 1000 years took place, with similar impacts as the AD 1815 event of Tambora, Indonesia, that caused the ‘year without a summer’ of AD 1816. The submarine caldera of Kuwae, Vanuatu, has long been suggested to be the source of the AD 1450s eruption, but this is still highly debated.Today, the 12-by-6 km large Kuwae caldera lies between the islands of Epi and Tongoa. Here, an eruption occurred in the 15th century eruption and locally caused devastation, covering the islands surrounding it with vast amounts of pyroclastic material. We present the first full stratigraphy of the event, enabling us to reconstruct the eruptive sequence. First, a small ash plume produced fine ash deposits overlying faulted soil sequences, indicating a low-energy, precursory phase. Afterwards, the eruption built a Plinian eruption column, causing lapilli fall in excess of 3 m in proximal locations, and sending volcanic particle...

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