Ilopango eruption (Tierra Blanca Joven)
Erupción del Ilopango (Tierra Blanca Joven)
- Date
- c. 431 (discutido) · confidence low
- Place
- Lake Ilopango, San Salvador, El Salvador
- Credited to
- Geologists and volcanologists (Hart and Steen-McIntyre; Dull; Smith and colleagues)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Reconstruction of the Plinian eruption that formed the caldera of Lake Ilopango and blanketed much of El Salvador in ash, with serious demographic consequences for communities in the southern Maya zone. It ranks among the largest Holocene eruptions in the American tropics.
The date is debated: a 2020 dating (Smith and colleagues) places it at AD 431 ± 2, while a 2019 paper (Dull and colleagues) proposed AD 539-540 and linked it to the global cooling of 536; earlier estimates gave around AD 260. The assigned year is the most cited at present.
What it led to
- abandonment or reduction of settlements in western El Salvador for generations
- a reorganisation of power between the south and the Maya lowlands
- a case study of volcanic impacts on ancient societies