Science

A colossal volcano with the power of thousands of hydrogen bombs hidden beneath the earth

An enormous volcano, whose eruption was equated in power to thousands of hydrogen bombs, was identified beneath one of the flattest areas in England — about 454 million years after it was active. The finding may solve a geological mystery that has occupied researchers for years: where did the massive tephra layer found in Scandinavia and other regions of northern and eastern Europe originate? Researchers from the British Geological Survey and the University of Oslo re-examined samples taken from boreholes in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. Tiny crystals found in them were dated to about 454.4 million years old — an age matching the ancient ash layer known as the Kinnekulle tephra, which has been found, among other places, in Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Belarus. Their conclusion is that the source of the ash was a gigantic volcanic system now buried beneath the The Wash area on the eastern coast of England. During the eruption, hundreds of kilometers of high‑altitude rock and ash were propelled into the stratosphere, and the volcanic material traveled a great distance before settling far from its source. This event occurred more than 200 million years before the appearance of the dinosaurs.