Friday, March 19, 2010

Supervolcanic Lake

Lake Toba is the largest lake in South east Asia and is also the largest volcanic lake in the world, 100km long, 30km wide and 505 m at its deepest point. It is located in the northern part of Sumatra, Indonesia and was formed after a supervolcanic eruption 69,000 to 77,000 years ago. This eruption is believed to have been the largest eruption anywhere on Earth in the last 25 million years. According to some anthropologists and archeologists it had global consequences, killing most humans and creating a population bottleneck in Central Eastern Africa and India that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today.

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