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Volcanic eruptions are some of the most spectacular and most destructive natural events. Antarctica is home to more than one hundred volcanoes, some of which are entirely buried beneath the ice sheet. Some of these volcanoes are active, and have attracted many explorers and scientists. In this book you will discover where volcanoes are located on Earth, how they erupt, what the different types of volcanic activity are, and how volcanoes can be dangerous and affect life and the environment around them. You will learn how many volcanoes are located in Antarctica, which are the largest and most active, what happens when a volcano erupts into ice, and how scientists are able to study volcanoes in a place as remote as Antarctica.&nbsp

Las erupciones volcánicas son uno de los fenómenos naturales más espectaculares y destructivos. La Antártida alberga más de cien volcanes, y muchos de ellos están completamente cubiertos por la capa de hielo. Algunos de estos volcanes están activos y han atraído a muchos exploradores y científicos.En este libro descubrirás dónde se encuentran los volcanes en la Tierra, cómo entran en erupción, cuáles son los diferentes tipos de actividad volcánica y cómo los volcanes pueden ser peligrosos y afectar a la vida y al medioambiente que los rodea.Aprenderás cuántos volcanes hay en la Antártida, cuáles son los más grandes y activos, qué ocurre cuando un volcán entra en erupción bajo el hielo, y cómo los científicos y científicas pueden estudiar los volcanes en un lugar tan remoto como la Antártida.

The caldera collapse of Deception Island Volcano, Antarctica, was comparable in scale to some of the largest eruptions on Earth over the last several millennia. Despite its magnitude and potential for far-reaching environmental effects, the age of this event has never been established, with estimates ranging from the late Pleistocene to 3370 years before present. Here we analyse nearby lake sediments in which we identify a singular event produced by Deception Island's caldera collapse that occurred 3980 ± 125 calibrated years before present. The erupted tephra record the distinct geochemical composition of ejecta from the caldera-forming eruption, whilst an extreme seismic episode is recorded by lake sediments immediately overlying the collapse tephra. The newly constrained caldera collapse is now the largest volcanic eruption confirmed in Antarctica during the Holocene. An examination of palaeorecords reveals evidence in marine and lacustrine sediments for contemporaneous seismicity around the Antarctic Peninsula; synchronous glaciochemical volcanic signatures also record the eruption in ice cores spread around Antarctica, reaching >4600 km from source. The widespread footprint suggests that this eruption would have had significant climatic and ecological effects across a vast area of the south polar region.

The caldera collapse of Deception Island Volcano, Antarctica, was comparable in scale to some of the largest eruptions on Earth over the last several millennia. Despite its magnitude and potential for far-reaching environmental effects, the age of this event has never been established, with estimates ranging from the late Pleistocene to 3370 years before present. Here we analyse nearby lake sediments in which we identify a singular event produced by Deception Island's caldera collapse that occurred 3980 ± 125 calibrated years before present. The erupted tephra record the distinct geochemical composition of ejecta from the caldera-forming eruption, whilst an extreme seismic episode is recorded by lake sediments immediately overlying the collapse tephra. The newly constrained caldera collapse is now the largest volcanic eruption confirmed in Antarctica during the Holocene. An examination of palaeorecords reveals evidence in marine and lacustrine sediments for contemporaneous seismicity around the Antarctic Peninsula; synchronous glaciochemical volcanic signatures also record the eruption in ice cores spread around Antarctica, reaching >4600 km from source. The widespread footprint suggests that this eruption would have had significant climatic and ecological effects across a vast area of the south polar region.

The evolutionary and biogeographic history of the contemporary Antarctic terrestrial and marine biotas reveals many components of ancient origin. For large elements of the terrestrial biota, long-term isolation over timescales from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of years, and thus persistence through multiple glacial cycles, now appears to be the norm rather than the exception. For the marine biota there are some parallels with benthic communities also including ancient components, together with an incidence of species-level endemism indicating long-term isolation on the Antarctic continental shelf. Although it has long been known that a few ice-free terrestrial locations have existed in Antarctica for up to 10–12 million years, particularly in the Dry Valleys of Victoria Land along with certain nunataks and higher regions of large mountain ranges, these do not provide potential refugia for the majority of terrestrial biota, which occur mainly in coastal and/or low-lying locations and exhibit considerable biogeographic regionalisation within the continent. Current glacial models and reconstructions do not have the spatial resolution to detect unequivocally either the number or geographical distribution of these glacial refugia, or areas of the continental shelf that have remained periodically free from ice scouring, but do provide limits for their maximum spatial extent. Recent work on the evolution of the terrestrial biota indicates that refugia were much more widespread than has been recognised and it is now clear that terrestrial biology provides novel constraints for reconstructing the past glacial history of Antarctica, and new marine biological investigations of the Antarctic shelf are starting to do likewise. Refereed/Peer-reviewed