The 6th Century Eruption of Ilopango Volcano, El Salvador

The strongest short-term cooling event on Earth over the past 2000 years occurred from 536-550 of the Common Era. Evidence from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica suggests that the three separate eruptions occurred in AD 536, 540, and 547. The second of these was apparently the largest of the three and was of tropical origin. The eruption of Ilopango Volcano in El Salvador is thought to be the AD 540 ‘mystery’ tropical volcano that pushed the planet into a food security crisis during the 6th century.  This eruption was a magnitude 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, ranking it as one of the top 10 largest eruptions on Earth over the past 10,000 years.

Join us as we examine the eruption of Ilopango Volcano and explore the regional impacts on Central America during this time, including the suggestion that 250,000+ Mayans might have perished as a direct result of scorching pyroclastic flows and thick deposits of ash covering all of El Salvador and adjoining regions of Honduras and Guatemala.

Robert Dull is the Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cal Lutheran. He has spent most of his career working in Central America. Dull received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. Before arriving at Cal Lutheran, he held full-time academic appointments at UC Berkeley, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas, Austin.

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