Antarctic Island Exploded 4,000 Years Ago [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | November 29, 2018 03:16pm ET

Horseshoe-shaped Deception Island in Antarctica has finally revealed one of its most closely held secrets — when it exploded.

The island, an active volcano, got its unusual shape during a long-ago eruption that ejected massive amounts of rock and magma to form a bowl-shaped depression called a caldera. Now, researchers know that the massive eruption happened around 4,050 years ago.

This information will help volcanologists understand the volcano better, said study researcher Dermot Antoniades, a professor at Université Laval in Quebec. The findings will also help scientists like Antoniades, who studies ancient climate, figure out how Deception Island's eruption affected Antarctica's climate. [See Stunning Images of Antarctica's Deception Island]

Unexpected discovery
Antoniades and his colleagues didn't set out to discover an ancient volcanic eruption. The researchers were studying cores of sediments pulled from lakes on the Byers Peninsula, an ice-free spot on Livingston Island off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. In cores from different lakes, the scientists noticed something unusual.

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