Okmok and ancient Rome
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- Published: Tuesday, 23 June 2020 09:06
Members of PAGES' VICS working group have found evidence connecting an unexplained period of extreme cold in ancient Rome with a massive eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano.
Around the time of Julius Caesar's death in 44 BCE, written sources describe a period of unusually cold climate, crop failures, famine, disease, and unrest in the Mediterranean Region – impacts that ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt.
Historians have long suspected a volcano to be the cause, but have been unable to pinpoint where or when such an eruption had occurred, or how severe it was.
In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a research team of international scientists, led by Joe McConnell from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, USA, used an analysis of tephra (volcanic ash) found in Arctic ice cores to link the period of cold in the Mediterranean with the eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano in 43 BCE.
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