[Rockhounds] New findings date Los Chocoyos supereruption to 79, 500 years ago, and show Earth bounced back within decades

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

An international team of Earth and life scientists, hydrologists, chemists,
and physicists, has found evidence showing that the Los Chocoyos
supereruption occurred approximately 79,500 years ago and that the planet
bounced back from its chilling effects within decades.

In their paper published
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02095-6> in the journal
*Communications
Earth & Environment*, the group describes how they studied ice core samples
<https://phys.org/tags/ice+core+samples/> obtained from places in Greenland
and Antarctica to learn more about the global impact of the ancient
volcanic eruption.

Prior evidence has shown that a massive eruption occurred in what is now
Guatemala's Atitlán volcanic system tens of thousands of years ago, spewing
ash far into the atmosphere. So much ash was emitted, it has been thought,
that it led to an ice age. Today, the eruption is known as the Los Chocoyos
supereruption.

The research team wanted to know more about the global impact of the
eruption, so they ventured to Greenland and Antarctica to obtain ice cores
that they knew would reveal atmospheric conditions
<https://phys.org/tags/atmospheric+conditions/> at the time of the
eruption, and in the years that came after.

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-date-los-chocoyos-supereruption-years.html