Precise date for the Laacher See eruption synchronizes the Younger Dryas

Frederick Reinig (), Lukas Wacker, Olaf Jöris, Clive Oppenheimer, Giulia Guidobaldi, Daniel Nievergelt, Florian Adolphi, Paolo Cherubini, Stefan Engels, Jan Esper, Alexander Land, Christine Lane, Hardy Pfanz, Sabine Remmele, Michael Sigl, Adam Sookdeo and Ulf Büntgen
Additional contact information
Frederick Reinig: Johannes Gutenberg University
Lukas Wacker: ETH Zurich
Olaf Jöris: Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum–MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution
Clive Oppenheimer: University of Cambridge
Giulia Guidobaldi: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Daniel Nievergelt: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Florian Adolphi: Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research
Paolo Cherubini: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Stefan Engels: Birkbeck University of London
Jan Esper: Johannes Gutenberg University
Alexander Land: University of Hohenheim
Christine Lane: University of Cambridge
Hardy Pfanz: Universität Duisburg-Essen
Sabine Remmele: University of Hohenheim
Michael Sigl: University of Bern
Adam Sookdeo: ETH Zurich
Ulf Büntgen: University of Cambridge

Nature, 2021, vol. 595, issue 7865, 66-69

Abstract: Abstract The Laacher See eruption (LSE) in Germany ranks among Europe’s largest volcanic events of the Upper Pleistocene1,2. Although tephra deposits of the LSE represent an important isochron for the synchronization of proxy archives at the Late Glacial to Early Holocene transition3, uncertainty in the age of the eruption has prevailed4. Here we present dendrochronological and radiocarbon measurements of subfossil trees that were buried by pyroclastic deposits that firmly date the LSE to 13,006 ± 9 calibrated years before present (bp; taken as ad 1950), which is more than a century earlier than previously accepted. The revised age of the LSE necessarily shifts the chronology of European varved lakes5,6 relative to the Greenland ice core record, thereby dating the onset of the Younger Dryas to 12,807 ± 12 calibrated years bp, which is around 130 years earlier than thought. Our results synchronize the onset of the Younger Dryas across the North Atlantic–European sector, preclude a direct link between the LSE and Greenland Stadial-1 cooling7, and suggest a large-scale common mechanism of a weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under warming conditions8–10.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03608-x

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