Tea at Trianon: When Supervolcanoes Erupt

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 23, 2025

When Supervolcanoes Erupt

From SciTechDaily:

If you had been fortunate enough 74,000 years ago, you would have made it through the Toba supereruption, which ranks among Earth’s most catastrophic events over the last 2.5 million years. While the volcano is located in what’s now Indonesia, living organisms across the entire globe were potentially affected. As an archaeologist who specializes in studying volcanic eruptions of the past, I often think about how incredible it is that humans survived this extinction-level event that was over 10,000 times larger than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

During the Toba supereruption, approximately 672 cubic miles (2,800 km³) of volcanic ash were launched into the stratosphere, forming a massive crater about 1,000 football fields long (62 x 18 miles, or 100 x 30 kilometers). Such an event would have filled the atmosphere with ash, darkening the sky and blocking much of the sunlight, likely leading to years of global cooling. Near the volcano, acid rain would have poisoned water sources, and thick blankets of ash would have smothered vegetation and wildlife. (Read more.)