Produced by: Manoj Kumar
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For nearly two centuries, no one knew what cooled the planet in 1831. Now, a forgotten Soviet island might finally crack the case—courtesy of a volcano no one was watching.
Long sealed off as a Soviet sub base, Simushir Island harbored a secret. In 1831, Zavaritski volcano erupted with force rivaling Tambora—darkening skies and chilling global crops.
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No photos, no journals, no survivors—just ice cores and ash. Zavaritski’s blast was hidden in plain sight, its climate fingerprints locked inside Arctic ice for 193 years.
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UK scientists found a match between polar ash layers and Simushir’s volcanic debris—pinpointing a cooling event that baffled climate records since the 1800s.
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While the world tracked nuclear secrets on Simushir during the Cold War, nature had already tested a weapon of its own—one that dimmed the sun and reshaped harvests.
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Four volcanoes on Simushir are spaced with eerie symmetry. Scientists now suspect they’re fed by a shared magma source—raising fears that one blast could awaken them all.
If one Simushir volcano explodes, others might follow. The island’s underground connections could turn a local blast into a domino chain of global disaster.
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No seismometers. No satellite beacons. Simushir sits silent and unmonitored—leaving the next eruption to be noticed only when crops fail or skies darken again.
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Simushir’s Brouton Bay once hid Soviet submarines. Now it’s hiding volcanic truths that could rewrite climate history—and warn us of eruptions yet to come.
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