In 2010, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull produced an immense ash cloud that grounded airline travel and shipping all over Europe, canceling over 100,000 flights. Inconvenienced travelers were stranded in airports for days and the airline industry lost over $1 billion in revenue.
Mt. Pelee's claim to fame, if you will, was the violent eruption of 1902 which killed nearly 30,000 people and destroyed the nearby city of St. Pierre, considered at the time to be the “Paris of the Caribbean.”
What do you remember about 1991? Maybe it’s watching "Hook" or "Point Break" - but many of us might remember the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Tens to hundreds of times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, Mount Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption was the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
While relatively little known to the public today, Mount Tambora is the site of the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history. The 1815 eruption sent massive amounts of ash and gases high into the atmosphere, cooling the planet so much that the summer of 1816 is often referred to as the “year without a summer.”
You may have heard about the cataclysmic eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, sometimes considered the loudest sound ever experienced in modern human history. After the explosive eruption, only 1/3 of the island remained, and an estimated 36,000 people had perished.