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How an Overlooked Eruption May Have Sparked the Black Death
Scientific American ^ | December 4, 2025 | Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson

Posted on 12/22/2025 1:02:57 PM PST by SunkenCiv

The infamous Black Death -- a pandemic that killed as many as one third to one half of Europeans within just a few years -- may have been aided in its devastation by an unknown volcanic eruption.

That's the hypothesis presented in research published December 4 in Communications Earth & Environment, which argues that the eruption triggered several seasons of climate instability and crop failures. That instability, in turn, forced several Italian states to import grain stores from new sources -- specifically, from regions surrounding the Black Sea. Riding along on those grain stores, the researchers posit, were fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague.

Martin Bauch, a medieval and environmental historian... noticed a particularly serious crop failure beginning in northwestern Italy in late 1345 after serious rainstorms. Within just two years, the Black Death had begun, so he was curious whether there might be a connection.

Analyzing records about the grain trade suggested some Italian cities exhausted their typical food supplies, forcing them to import grain from the Black Sea region. Although the measure kept people fed, it may have introduced the Black Death to Europe as a nightmare ride-along, the Bauch and his co-author suggest...

Here a powerful eruption in 1345 stood out.

The eruption itself remains mysterious. The researchers suspect it occurred relatively close to the equator because its debris is visible in ice caps from both poles. But it will take significant additional work to identify the culprit. "Nobody considers this eruption particularly interesting," Bauch says. "We hope that changes."

(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: 1345; ancientnavigation; andreathompson; blackdeath; bubonicplague; catastrophism; disease; europe; history; meghanbartels; meteorology; middleages; plague; renaissance; science; scientificamerican; sunkenciv; volcano; yersiniapestis
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To: Owen; MtnClimber; Red Badger

It was wiping out the Orient, too. And the chicken may have come before the egg.

True, true.

I have never been completely “convinced” entirely by the classic “fleas and rats transmitted the Black Plague” because it its spread is so, so similar to the “walking pace” of the 1919 Spanish Flu - which evoked to create the exact same preventions as the 2020 Covid Plague.

Two different similarities between the Black Plague and the 1919 Flu though: Physical contact between the victims. Every Time. And, two different fatalities in both: A very rapid infection followed by a quick death, and a slower more traditional but classic “flu-like” pneumonia lung infection.

/sarcasm (The rooster came before either. )


21 posted on 12/22/2025 3:23:55 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE
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To: SunkenCiv

Bill Gate$$$$$ and his moron geo-engineering associates are trying to recreate ‘global-cooling’ similar to that era, by injecting tons of aerosol particles into the atmosphere.


22 posted on 12/22/2025 3:43:27 PM PST by rfp1234 (E porcibus unum)
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To: SaveFerris

GH = George Harrison?


23 posted on 12/22/2025 3:44:24 PM PST by rfp1234 (E porcibus unum)
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To: crz

> We aint s××t. Mother nature rules.

/bingo


24 posted on 12/22/2025 3:54:35 PM PST by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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25 posted on 12/22/2025 3:58:31 PM PST by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: rfp1234

Or Gene Hackman


26 posted on 12/22/2025 4:07:29 PM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: SaveFerris
Hantavirus 1993 {Navajo Reservation, AZ & NM)}
Hantavirus got GH’s wife 2025 {Santa Fe}

The Plague is bacteriological and can be treated with antibiotics if medical attention is caught early.

The Hanta virus is a virus like the flu and cannot be treated with antibiotics. Instead symptoms are treated with fever reducers and palliative care. Once past the initial symptoms infection moves to the lungs which often is fatal to the patient (hantavirus pulmonary syndrome [HPS]). Mortality is 35-40 percent and survivors can have complications.

Personal story: Due to circumstances I won't detail, this past summer I was suspected of having the virus resulting in a hospital stay. There is a test for the virus but results take up to two weeks to receive. I was tested twice, once in the ER and the second in the hospital. Following review of my case by a virologist, I was discharged after one day. I received the test results after ten days and they had two parts - the first was antibodies indicating Hanta virus exposure and the second was current exposure to the HPS species. I was positive for the first but negative for the second part. Obviously treatment is not to be delayed pending test results and whatever type of flu I had was not the deadly kind.

27 posted on 12/22/2025 4:20:16 PM PST by CedarDave (Having proudly supported Free Republic for over 25 years!)
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To: SaveFerris

Plague is common in New Mexico in summer, partly due to prairie dog colonies near large population areas. Friends who work for the health department and trap rodents to test for the plague refer to NM as the “land of the flea and the home of the plague.”


28 posted on 12/22/2025 4:26:35 PM PST by CedarDave (Having proudly supported Free Republic for over 25 years!)
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To: CedarDave

Yikes 😳


29 posted on 12/22/2025 4:36:15 PM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ok- all well and good. Now show any research showing fleas eating.... grain. Fleas require blood, as any animal owner knows when trying to get rid of them. The flea vector is still there in regards Bubonic Plague. In the Middle Ages, people obviously did not make the connection, and commonly the poor ate rats for subsistence. A cruel irony that the fleas off of their meal bit and killed them. 50% loss of population is really something.


30 posted on 12/22/2025 5:03:28 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis )
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To: Tell It Right; SunkenCiv

A similar problem would be the crop failures after the Laki Fissure event 1883 in Iceland which caused severe enough crop failures in France to set the stage for the French Revolution a few years later. Our Benjamin Franklin who was in France for diplomatic purposes related to our own Revolution a few years earlier, noted the possibility of something in Iceland causing climate problems. Link:

“futurity.org
https://www.futurity.org › Archives
May 15, 2019 — Following the 1783-84 eruption of the Laki volcano on Iceland, Benjamin Franklin speculated on its effects on the climate.”

Unfortunately, my computer would not go to the direct page for me to use that UrL. Problem getting links all day with this Chromebook.


31 posted on 12/22/2025 5:41:56 PM PST by gleeaikin (Question Authority: report facts, and post their links in your message.)
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To: crz; SunkenCiv; SaveFerris

I have been wondering about the massive amounts of water vapor thrown into the stratosphere by the gigantic Tonga ocean level eruption. Might it be a cause of the severe flooding and related odd weather events the world has suffered the past few years? Do you have any good links?

SF: Who is GH whose wife got hantavirus?


32 posted on 12/22/2025 5:55:34 PM PST by gleeaikin (Question Authority: report facts, and post their links in your message.)
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To: SaveFerris

Dave is on the mark. There have been a number of cases in the metropolis of Tijeras, NM since I’ve been here. Since it is a known problem, folks are treated and recover.

A number of years ago a couple from Santa Fe were visiting NYC when the symptoms manifested. The doctors there were not up to speed on the plague being a “thing” and they suffered amputations but, I believe, survived.


33 posted on 12/22/2025 6:04:19 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: JimRed

President Teddy Roosevelt first coined the term “weasel words”. Also, “pussyfoot”.


34 posted on 12/22/2025 6:06:05 PM PST by The Duke (Not without incident)
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To: CedarDave; John S Mosby; SaveFerris; SunkenCiv

I have read in the past that 17 western US states have endemic bubonic plague. Half a dozen or so people a year die or are very sick from this illness here. A problem for Europe in the Middle Ages was that while the common Norway rat is mostly a cellar dweller, the Black rat which was carrying in bubonic infected fleas was an upstairs rat, thus exposing more people to the fleas.

I am currently rereading an old book, copywrite 1966, called “My Way Was North, written about wildlife in our far north areas. The book pointed out there is a roughly 10 year cycles of gradual increase of rodents/rabbits to huge quantities, and then a sudden die off to almost no rabbits or the many predators (animal and bird) that live off them. Then the same gradual increase again. It was suggested this might relate to the approximate 11 year sun spot cycle of increase and decrease in number of sun spots.


35 posted on 12/22/2025 6:24:15 PM PST by gleeaikin (Question Authority: report facts, and post their links in your message.)
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To: gleeaikin

Gene Hackman


36 posted on 12/22/2025 7:03:15 PM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: John S Mosby

Some Khazerians lived near the Black Sea, right?

(The “Khazerian mafia” were forced, inauthentic converts to Judaism while they were actually opportunistic Luciferian Satanists.)

One theory is that Khazerian mafia sent a ship carrying the plague via fleas on rats purposely to a French port in approximately 1336.


37 posted on 12/22/2025 7:48:52 PM PST by rx
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To: Tell It Right; SunkenCiv; fireman15

I think everyone got my /sarc, but let me be unambiguous.

The idea that Man somehow screwed up the planet’s ecosystem this bigly is laughable.

The 100+ year temperature plots are problematic on a number of fronts.

Now…can a natural process cause weather and climate impacts? You bet…sunspots, El Niño, and so on are likely candidates.

Volcano activity could also be a contributing factor. Indeed, the plots I stacked at a minimum suggests maybe THAT is an avenue worth exploring.

Alas, natural processes can’t be taxed or form the basis of rights deprivation. Which is why they’ll never be championed by the climate goons.


38 posted on 12/22/2025 8:15:21 PM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
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To: DoodleBob

Exactly so. The climate is 100% natural 100% of the time.


39 posted on 12/22/2025 8:29:47 PM PST by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: gleeaikin

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4358595/posts?page=26#26


40 posted on 12/22/2025 8:54:22 PM PST by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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