Earth and Environment Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
21 statements.
1257 Samalas Eruption, Magnitude or ScaleProbable Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) 7, one of the largest eruptions of the Holocene
1257 Samalas Eruption, Death TollUnknown at Lombok itself, though the eruption is linked to famines and crop failures abroad; the city of Pamatan was destroyed
1755 Lisbon Earthquake, Magnitude or ScaleModern estimates place the moment magnitude between 7.7 and 9.0
1755 Lisbon Earthquake, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Magnitude or Scale
Currently States Modern estimates place the moment magnitude between 7.7 and 9.0
No instruments existed in 1755; the magnitude is reconstructed from shaking accounts, damage and tsunami records, and estimates genuinely differ across this range.
Source 1755 Lisbon Earthquake (Wikipedia)
1755 Lisbon Earthquake, Death TollRoughly 30,000 to 40,000 dead in Lisbon; totals across Portugal, Spain and Morocco estimated at 40,000 to 50,000
1755 Lisbon Earthquake, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Death Toll
Currently States Roughly 30,000 to 40,000 dead in Lisbon; totals across Portugal, Spain and Morocco estimated at 40,000 to 50,000
Contemporary records are incomplete and scholarly totals differ by region counted; a further 10,000 may have died in Morocco.
Source 1755 Lisbon Earthquake (Wikipedia)
1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes, Magnitude or ScaleEstimated moment magnitude 7.2 to 8.2 for the initial shock
1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes, Death TollUnknown; the sparsely settled frontier region left no reliable casualty count
1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora, Death TollAbout 10,000 to 11,000 killed directly; totals including post-eruption famine and disease range from about 60,000 to 100,000
1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Death Toll
Currently States About 10,000 to 11,000 killed directly; totals including post-eruption famine and disease range from about 60,000 to 100,000
Tanguy and colleagues (1998) count 11,000 direct and 49,000 famine and epidemic deaths; Oppenheimer estimates at least 71,000 in total; Reid's estimate reaches 100,000.
Source 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora (Wikipedia)
1902 Eruption of Mount Pelee, Death TollApproximately 29,000 overall, about 28,000 of them in Saint-Pierre within minutes
1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Death TollEstimated between 700 and over 3,000
1960 Valdivia Earthquake, Death TollEstimated between 1,000 and 6,000
1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens, Death TollAbout 57, with documentation uncertainty in the range of 55 to 64 depending on whether indirect deaths are counted
2010 Haiti Earthquake, Death TollHeavily disputed: independent academic estimates run roughly 100,000 to 160,000, while the Haitian government has claimed 220,000 to 316,000
2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Death Toll19,759 confirmed dead and 2,553 still listed as missing, per the 2021 official figures
Armero Tragedy, Death TollAbout 23,000 overall, more than 20,000 of them in Armero itself
Dust Bowl, Death TollNo official period death count exists for the 1930s Great Plains. The commonly cited figure, drawn from period reports of so-called dust pneumonia among infants, children and the elderly in the worst-hit counties, is roughly 7,000, though historians treat it as a rough estimate rather than a verified total.
Dust Bowl, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Death Toll
Currently States No official period death count exists for the 1930s Great Plains. The commonly cited figure, drawn from period reports of so-called dust pneumonia among infants, children and the elderly in the worst-hit counties, is roughly 7,000, though historians treat it as a rough estimate rather than a verified total.
Estimates in secondary sources range from the hundreds to several thousand; no contemporary official mortality register for the affected counties survives to settle the figure.
Source Dust Bowl (Wikipedia)
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, Death TollUnknown; remains of over 1,500 people have been recovered from Pompeii and Herculaneum, whose combined population exceeded 20,000, but the total death toll is unconfirmed
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, Event Date0079-08-24
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Event Date
Currently States 0079-08-24
The traditional date rests on a figure in Pliny the Younger's letter to Tacitus, printed since 1508 as 24 August; the surviving manuscript tradition is ambiguous, with some copies reading other dates. Archaeological evidence favors an autumn eruption instead: excavated autumn fruit, warm clothing on victims and wine vessels sealed after the grape harvest, a 2007 study matching the ash plume's southeasterly fall to autumn rather than summer wind patterns, and a 2018 charcoal inscription apparently dated 17 October whose own dating (whether it records 79 AD itself) remains unconfirmed. A 2022 study proposed a range of 24 October to 1 November; that conclusion has been challenged in turn. The traditional 24 August date is recorded here as the conventional reference point given the genuine, still-unsettled state of the scholarship, not as a claim that it is the best-supported date.
Source Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD (Wikipedia)
Isostasy, DescriptionThe state of gravitational equilibrium between Earth's crust or lithosphere and the denser mantle beneath it, so that a thicker or lighter crustal block floats higher, much as a taller iceberg floats higher in water.
Isostasy, Concepts
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States The state of gravitational equilibrium between Earth's crust or lithosphere and the denser mantle beneath it, so that a thicker or lighter crustal block floats higher, much as a taller iceberg floats higher in water.
Isostatic equilibrium itself is well established, but the two classical 1855 models proposed to explain how it is achieved, George Airy's model of uniform crustal density and varying thickness, and John Henry Pratt's model of uniform crustal thickness and varying density, remain in use as different approximations, with the real Earth behaving as a hybrid of both.
Source Isostasy (Wikipedia)
Laki Eruption, 1783-1784, Death TollAt least a fifth, by some estimates a quarter, of Iceland's population died in the resulting famine; an estimated 23,000 further deaths are linked to the sulfurous haze over Britain
Laki Eruption, 1783-1784, Phenomena
Standing
Concerns Death Toll
Currently States At least a fifth, by some estimates a quarter, of Iceland's population died in the resulting famine; an estimated 23,000 further deaths are linked to the sulfurous haze over Britain
Source Laki (Wikipedia)
Mantle Convection, DescriptionThe very slow creep of Earth's solid silicate mantle as convection currents driven by internal heat, widely credited as the engine that carries the tectonic plates above it.
Mantle Convection, Processes
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States The very slow creep of Earth's solid silicate mantle as convection currents driven by internal heat, widely credited as the engine that carries the tectonic plates above it.
That the mantle convects is not in question, but whether it convects as one whole-mantle system or as separate layers above and below the transition zone was long debated; seismic tomography and gravity studies now favor whole-mantle convection at present, though the debate over deep, geochemically distinct reservoirs is not fully settled.
Source Mantle Convection (Wikipedia)