Elsevier

Lithos

Volume 79, Issues 3–4, February 2005, Pages 343-353
Lithos

Pollution and paradigms: lessons from Icelandic volcanism for continental flood basalt studies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lithos.2004.09.006Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper is based on the premise that research into the environmental impact of continental flood basalt (CFB) volcanism has paid insufficient attention to the potential ecosystem damage that would result from the direct deposition of hundreds of megatons (Tg) of sulphur and other volatiles. The environmental impacts of the 1783 Laki Fissure eruption are reviewed in outline. It is shown that in a relatively brief period of volcanic activity, volatiles emitted by the eruption damaged and destroyed vegetation from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean. Air pollution was so intense that human health was affected and the national death rate increased dramatically in both England and France.

It is proposed that the events of 1783 may be used as a paradigm for the environmental impacts of a CFB lava flow, and the emissions of 1783 are scaled up to illustrate this point. Thus, if a Laki style event were to erupt for a year it would approach the physical scale of a single episode of the Roza flow in the Columbia River CFB and potentially yield 576 Tg of sulphur gases which could have been oxidised into approximately 945 Tg of aerosol. This could generate a tropospheric aerosol mass of approximately 708 Tg H2SO4.

The ecosystem impact of the deposition of acids on this scale would be profound and, as with the actual Laki event, be continental in scale. All parts of the plant life cycle would be disrupted, including photosynthesis and fruiting. Inevitably, with the disruption of food webs animals would also be affected. Poorly buffered inland waters would be acidified, as would Boreal soils, reducing their biodiversity.

In our already polluted and interdependent world, any future event on this scale would have serious consequences for human health and trade.

Introduction

Continental flood basalt (CFB) eruptions are plausibly correlated with a number of the extinction events apparent in the palaeontological record (Courtillot, 1999, Wignall, 2001), which has prompted questions as to the mechanisms by which volcanic activity of this style may be able to critically stress and modify environments. Inevitably, global cooling by volcanic aerosols is the mechanism that has received attention, but the geological record frequently indicates increases in the volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at these times (Wignall, 2001), which may be opposing evidence for the operation of a cooling mechanism over the long term. By studying the environmental effects associated with recent Icelandic fissure volcanism, which is the closest current analogue for CFB activity, it may be possible to gain a better understanding of the environmental impacts of CFB volcanism. In this paper, the environmental impacts of the 1783 AD Laki Fissure eruption will be briefly reviewed, followed by consideration of the potential consequences should the peak output of this event been sustained for a year.

Section snippets

Laki Fissure eruption

By studying the environmental impacts of the this eruption, which are reviewed in outline below, we may be able to gain insights into the range of environmental mechanisms that could have been affected by CFB episodes and be able to construct more effective models, which relate CFB episodes to mass extinction events. For a few weeks of its 7-month life, the output of the AD 1783–1784 Laki Fissure eruption approached the scale of a single episode of a CFB eruption (Thordarson and Self, 1996).

Environmental impacts of the Laki Fissure eruption

In Iceland, the environmental impacts of the emitted gases were severe. Farmland was abandoned, crops and pasture were destroyed, mainly by sulphuric acid deposition and both people and livestock appear to have died through a combination of acid deposition, fluorosis, disease and starvation (Thórarinsson, 1969, Ogilvie, 1986, Steingrimson, 1998, Thordarsson, 2003a, Thordarsson, 2003b). The experience of Iceland in 1783 and the suffering the people endured in the years that followed, serve to

Critical synergies

Through June and July 1783, the eruption released over 80 Tg of SO2 into the atmosphere. The emitted sulphur generated a persistent acid fog which had a complex impact upon the environment including, extreme weather, acidification of still waters, acid damage to plants and ill health, disease and death. A key component of the severity of these events appears to be the concurrent atmospheric circulation patterns. Kington (1988) has produced a weather map for Europe for each day of the 1780s.

The Laki Fissure continental flood basalt

The following discussion is inevitably speculative, but it considers the likely range of environmental impacts that could be expected had the Laki Fissure eruption maintained its peak output for a whole year, and, in essence, resembled a single lava flow of a CFB episode, for instance the Roza flow of the Colombia River basalt group (Thordarson and Self, 1996). Several basic assumptions are made here to produce this scenario: (1) that 80 Tg of sulphur are released every 50 days throughout the

Discussion

Severe though they actually were, had the Laki Fissure maintained its peak output for an entire year, the environmental consequences would have led to an environmental crisis. Rather than most of the damage to the environment being confined to a brief period between June and July, acid rain and aerosols would have been deposited repeatedly. Between June 8th 1783–June 8th 1784 stable high-pressure systems dominated the weather of Europe on 11 separate episodes totalling 147 days, during which

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges fruitful discussion with Stephen Self and the assistance of R. Rabartin.

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