[Pelagius of Asturias]

Because it has erupted as a supervolcano previously. Look up the Lake Toba eruption 75,000 years or so ago.

Its history is of eruptions larger than any in recorded history. Ejecting a few thousand cubic kilometers of material not to mention dioxides of sulfur.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Bookmarky so I can find this tomorrow.

If there is a tomorrow............

[Justa]

Toba is pretty cool if you think about it. It occurred during the last ice age and the results were it took hominids down to only a few thousand members. If you think about it along with the climate at the time it explains the 'out of Africa' model of hominid development. Equatorial Africa would be one of the few places on earth not frozen over following Toba's eruption during the last ice age.

Maybe it's not that Africa is the source of all hominid development, just that during periodic global climate events it's the only place where hominids survived. Imo this explain why many hominid species suddenly died out. They weren't in a sustainable environment during a cataclysmic event.