When Humans Almost Went Extinct

Our existence was perilously close to the end

70,000 years ago, the Toba super-volcano in Sumatra, Indonesia erupted with a VEI rating of 8, the highest rating possible on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Today, it’s known in the mainstream as the Toba Catastrophe.

The eruption was 12 times more powerful than the eruption of Mount Tambora (VEI 7), an eruption which caused the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, and hundreds-to-thousands of times more powerful than both Krakatoa (VEI 6) and Mount St. Helens (VEI 5). Despite recent assertions that it wasn’t as bad as all that, make no mistake, it was a globe-altering catastrophe.

The aftermath was so devastating, humans were driven to the verge of extinction. According to one controversial hypothesis which has since been bolstered by genetics, a population “bottleneck” occurred and there were only 3,000 to 10,000 surviving humans left on Planet Earth.

We were a species on the ropes but we survived and reproduced, and everyone on Earth today is descended from a survivor of the Toba Catastrophe.

Our existence is fragile.

Original art by Troy Larson
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