1 mai 10900 av. J.-C. - Laacher See Eruption

Description:

The initial blasts flattened trees up to four kilometres away. The magma erupted for about ten hours, with the plume probably reaching a height of 35 kilometres. Activity continued for several weeks or months, with pyroclastic currents which covered valleys up to ten kilometres away with sticky tephra. Near the crater deposits are over fifty metres, and even five kilometres away they are still ten metres thick. All plants and animals for a distance of about sixty kilometres to the northeast and forty kilometres to the southeast must have been exterminated.

Tephra deposits from the eruption dammed the Rhine, creating a 140 km2 (50 sq mi) lake. When the dam broke, an outburst flood swept downstream, leaving deposits as far away as Bonn. The fallout has been identified in an area of more than 300,000 square kilometres, stretching from central France to northern Italy, and from southern Sweden to Poland.