Toba Eruption

The Toba eruption was a supervolcanic eruption at present day Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, about 74,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene, rated a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8, the largest known explosive eruption of the entire Quaternary period. It released an estimated 3,800 cubic kilometers of material, blanketing the Indian subcontinent in ash roughly 5 centimeters deep and depositing measurable ash across more than 38 million square kilometers. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that the eruption triggered a volcanic winter lasting six to ten years and a human population bottleneck, but the theory remains disputed: some physical and genetic evidence contradicts a link to a global cold event or population crash, and some researchers consider it disproven.