The principle of the butterfly effect is that given enough time, any event, no matter how small, can and will have huge consequences in the future. And when it comes to past natural disasters or other disasters, we must always keep in mind that, despite the destruction, they are part of what makes us live in this world. Without them, the world and everything in it would take a completely different turn, which would lead to the creation of a completely different world than today. The earlier an event happened, the more indirectly it has an impact on the present and future, changing them beyond recognition. Check out article 10 Sad Facts About Earth's Future.
We can speculate about how everything could have ended if some kind of catastrophe did not happen, but the variables are so small, and there are so many of them, that we will never know the correct answer. Like forecasting the weather (which looks to the future anyway), we can only make an assumption based on the information we receive, which is very limited. Let's take a look at 10 natural disasters from our pastand then imagine what the world would look like without them. You might be interested in the articles on the 10 most expensive terrorist attacks in human history.
10. Breakthrough of Lake Agassiz, North America
About 14,500 years ago, the planet's climate began to emerge from the last Great Ice Age. And as temperatures began to rise, the Arctic ice mass covering most of the Northern Hemisphere began to melt. Fast forward 1,600 years to the center of northern North America (where areas of North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario are now located), which was under a huge proglacial lake formed by melt water, which was blocked by a wall of ice or other natural dam. With an approximate area of 273,000 sq. km, Lake Agassiz was larger than any lake in the world today, about the size of the Black Sea.
Then, for some reason, the dam burst, and all the fresh water from the lake rushed into the Arctic Ocean through the Mackenzie River valley. And even if the flood itself was not strong enough, then its consequences probably destroyed the megafauna of North America, as well as the people of the Clovis culture. The insane amount of fresh water that has flooded the Arctic Ocean has significantly weakened the Atlantic conveyor belt by 30% or more. Warm water travels along this conveyor to the Arctic, where it cools down to the bottom and returns to the south along the ocean floor. With a fresh influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz, the cycle slowed and the Northern Hemisphere returned to near-icy temperatures for 1,200 years, in a period known as the Younger Dryas. The end of this period, about 11,500 years ago, was even more abrupt than its beginning, when the temperature in Greenland rose by 18 degrees Fahrenheit in just 10 years.
9. Eruptions of Siberian Traps, Central Russia
About 252 million years ago, planet Earth looked very different from today. Life was as alien as it could be, and all the continents were pushed together to form a single super-continent known as Pangea. Evolution proceeded along the usual path, with the prosperity of life on land and at sea. Then, as if out of nowhere, everything changed in one geological instant.
In the Far North of Pangea, where Siberia is now located, a super-volcano of biblical proportions began to erupt. The eruption was incredibly powerful and destructive, covering an area of almost 2.7 million square meters. km (approximately equal to the continental United States) and was covered with a layer of lava 1.5 km thick. Just over 800,000 sq. km of this layer can still be seen in the region called Siberian traps.
The eruption itself and the destructive lava flows that followed it became only a catalyst for an irreversible chain of events that destroyed 75% of all life on earth and more than 95% of all sea creatures. This apocalyptic event, known as the Great Extinction, marked the transition between the Permian and Triassic periods. The immediate effect of the super-volcano completely devastated the Northern Hemisphere, turning the air into a veritable acid and plunging the entire food chain into total chaos.... The eruption was followed by a centuries-old volcanic winter, 10% of all species on earth died. After the deposition of dust, the planet's climate immediately went into a phase of global warming, the overall temperature rose by 5 degrees Celsius, which led to the extinction of another 35% of all land creatures.
The oceans were nearby, the water absorbed a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, turning it into carbonic acid. As temperatures rose, oxygen-depleted water from the ocean floor began to expand and rise from the depths, taking all marine life into a difficult position. A huge amount of methane hydrate, even today found on the ocean floor, has risen to the surface due to warming water, thereby increasing the planet's temperature by another 5 degrees Celsius. At that time, almost all marine species became extinct, and only the toughest living creatures managed to survive. This event is the largest mass extinction event on Earth. But by now, our production is emitting four times more CO2 into the atmosphere than a super-volcano many millions of years ago, and most of the above effects are already starting to occur.
8. Sturegga Landslide, Norwegian Sea
About 8,000 years ago, 100 km off the northern coast of modern Norway, a huge piece of land about the size of Iceland broke off the European continental shelf and plunged into the depths of the Norwegian Sea. Most likely, this process was caused by an earthquake, which led to the destabilization of methane hydrates at the bottom, 1,350 cubic kilometers of sediments were distributed over 1,600 kilometers in the ocean floor, covering an area of about 59,000 square kilometers. km. The ensuing tsunami triggered a landslide that caused havoc on all nearby land masses.
Since the planet was just emerging from the previous Ice Age, the sea level was 14 meters lower than today. Even so, the sediments left behind by the Sturegg landslide were found 80 km inland in some places and at an altitude of 6 meters above today's high tide level. The 25-meter waves have seriously affected the territories of modern Scotland, England, Norway, Iceland, the Faroe, Orkney and Shetland Islands, Greenland, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The last piece of land that once connected the British Isles to mainland Europe, known as Doggerland, was completely flooded, thus creating the North Sea that we know today. This is not the first or last time, several other small landslides off the coast of modern Norway occurred between 50,000 and 6,000 years ago. Oil and gas companies take special precautions to avoid accidentally provoking such an event.
7 Lucky eruption, Iceland
Iceland is located directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where two large tectonic plates move away from each other. This makes the island nation one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. In 1783, a 29-kilometer rift in the island's surface, known as the Lucky Fissure, was ripped open by an eruption. Along the entire length of the volcano, 130 craters were formed, which spewed 5.4 cubic meters. km of basaltic lava for 8 months.Incomparable in size and destruction to what happened in Siberia 252 million years ago, the eruption of Laki was characterized by very similar signs, and was the largest volcanic eruption in the last 500 years. Through a network of underground tunnels known as lava tubes, the molten rock spread hundreds of kilometers from the fault and wiped out 20 villages from the face of the earth.
However, the most destructive effect of Lucky was not the lava itself, but the toxic gases released into the atmosphere. About 8 million tons of hydrogen fluoride and 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide were released, poisoning the air and producing acid rain. As a result, three quarters of the sheep and more than half of all cattle in Iceland were killed. Due to hunger and disease, more than 20% of Iceland's population died over the next few months. In addition, sulfur dioxide has spread to much of the Northern Hemisphere, blocking out the sun's rays and plunging the planet into a mini-volcanic winter. Europe was hit hardest by this eruption, which caused crop failures and famine that led to the infamous French Revolution.
The rest of the world was also affected by the eruption. North America endured the longest and most severe winter, one-sixth of Egypt's population died of hunger, and the monsoon seasons were in disarray, affecting even regions as far away as India and Southeast Asia.
6. Super Tornado Outbreak, 2011, Central USA
In general, tornadoes have left few traces of their existence over a long period of time. Their consequences can be devastating, but from an archaeological point of view, not much evidence of a tornado's passage can be found. However, the largest and most destructive tornado event in human history took place in 2011 in the square, colloquially known as “tornado alley”In the USA and Canada.
From April 25 to April 28, a total of 362 tornadoes were recorded and confirmed by the National Meteorological Service in 15 states. Destructive tornadoes occurred every day, since April 27, the most active ones have been recorded, 218 tornadoes have been recorded. Four of them were classified in the EF5 category, the highest rating on the Fujita Tornado Scale. On average, there is one EF5 tornado recorded around the world once a year or less.
A total of 348 people were killed in this outbreak, 324 of whom died directly from the tornado. The remaining 24 people were victims of flash floods, fist-sized hail or lightning strikes. Another 2,200 people were injured. Alabama suffered the most, with 252 deaths. The epicenter of the impact was the city of Tuscaloosa in Alabama, where an EF4 tornado with a diameter of almost 1.5 km and a wind speed of more than 200 km / h passed through residential areas of the city. The total material damage is estimated at about $ 11 billion, which made the 2011 super-tornado outbreak one of the most expensive natural disasters in the United States.
5. Spanish flu, worldwide
At a time when the world was gripped by the horrors of the First World War, an even more merciless assassin spread across the planet. The Spanish flu, or Spanish flu, became the deadliest pandemic in modern history, with 500 million people infected worldwide - about a third of the population - and 20 to 50 million deaths in less than six months... As World War I gradually drew to a close in late 1918, the influenza virus was initially overlooked, especially on the battlefield, which quickly became an ideal breeding ground for airborne disease.
For many years, scientists believed that the origin of influenza began in the trenches of France, and intensive research was carried out on this type of influenza in neutral Spain, which gave it the name “Spanish flu”. The harsh fighting conditions were ideal for such a disease, with large numbers of people living together in poverty and often in close proximity to animals such as pigs. What's more, the many deadly chemicals used during World War I provided ample opportunity for the virus to mutate.
However, ten years after the war, Kansas was seriously considered as another possible breeding ground for the H1N1 flu virus when 48 infantrymen were found dead in military camps. More recent figures point to a group of 96,000 Chinese workers who were sent to work behind British and French lines. Reports of respiratory illness that hit northern China in November 1917 were identified a year later by Chinese health officials as identical to the Spanish flu. However, no direct link has been found between the Chinese disease and the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic.
The effects of the pandemic can be felt today, 100 years later, as related strains of the virus caused epidemics in 1957, 1968, and then in 2009 and 2010 during “swine flu crisis”. None of these cases were as deadly as at the end of World War I, when only the isolated island of Marajo in the Brazilian Amazon Delta was not reported as an outbreak.
4. The last outburst of Lake Agassiz and the Black Sea flood, Eastern Europe
Once again, Lake Agassiz is included in this list, this time due to its final drainage, which occurred about 8,200 years ago. Following the last spill of this large lake, mentioned above, the ice sheet has re-formed due to the cooling caused by the influx of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean. But after 1200 years, the planet warmed up again and the lake overflowed again. But this time Agassiz merged with another equally large lake, Ojibwe. The unification, however, did not last long, and this time their waters rushed into Hudson Bay. As before, the planet plunged into another period of global cooling (6200 BC). However, this time the cold snap was much shorter than the Younger Dryas, and lasted about 150 years. However, the sudden influx of water into the oceans has led to a rise in sea level by as much as 4 meters.
Major floods have occurred in all corners of the world: from America, Europe, Africa, Arabia, South Asia and to the Pacific Islands. A large number of submerged settlements have been found throughout the world, which can probably date from this period. Perhaps it was during this period that the myths of the worldwide flood were born. But the largest flooding event occurred in Eastern Europe in the Black Sea region, which at the time was nothing more than a freshwater lake. Due to the rapid rise in sea level, the Bosphorus was partially destroyed and waters from the Mediterranean poured into the lake, which as a result turned into the Black Sea. The rate at which water entered the lake, as well as its quantity, remain a matter of controversy to this day.
Some believe that more than 16 cubic kilometers of water passed through the strait in a stream 200 times the flow of Niagara Falls. This continued for three centuries and 96,500 sq. M. Were flooded. km of land, the water level rose by 15 cm per day. Others believe that the flood was gradual and only 1,240 sq. km.
3. The Zanklin Flood and the Mediterranean Sea
Just like the Black Sea mentioned above, the Mediterranean Sea was once a lake. As the African and Eurasian tectonic plates moved closer and closer together over many millions of years, they eventually collided. About 5.6 million years ago, their initial point of contact was between the Iberian Peninsula and the northern coast of West Africa. Isolated from the Atlantic Ocean, the modern Mediterranean lake has been evaporating due to arid conditions for several hundred thousand years. In most places, the seabed was covered with a layer of salt more than a kilometer thick.This salt was blown by the winds, wreaking havoc on the surrounding landscape.
Fortunately, after 300,000 years, the Mediterranean Sea has re-filled. The likely cause is the continued shift of the crustal plates, which in turn caused land subsidence around the Strait of Gibraltar. Over the course of several thousand years, which is an instant in geological terms, the Atlantic Ocean dug its way through a 200-kilometer channel. The flow of water that reached the Mediterranean basin was slow at first, but even then, it was three times the current flow of the Amazon River. However, it is believed that after the canal became wide enough, the water flow became enormous, filling the remaining 90% of the Mediterranean basin in a period of several months to two years. The rise in the water level could reach 10 meters per day. This event is known as the Zanklin Flood. And even today, more than 5 million years later, the Mediterranean Sea is much saltier than the ocean due to the narrow strait that connects them.
2. Drought in northern China, 1876-79
Between 1876 and 1879, there was a severe drought in China, which killed about 13 million people out of a total population of 108 million. As the world emerged from its last cooling period, known as the "Little Ice Age," a drought in the Yellow River Basin began in early 1876, worsening the next year's harvest with an almost complete lack of rainfall. It was the worst drought in the region in 300 years, and is likely to have caused the highest death toll. Shanxi Province was hit hardest by the famine, which killed an estimated 5.5 million people out of a total population of 15 million.
This is not the first time China has faced a severe drought, and up until the 18th century, the country invested heavily in storing and distributing grain in case of such dire situations. In fact, the government has taken effective measures on a number of occasions to prevent severe droughts that could lead to widespread famine.
But this time, the Qing state was significantly weakened by the middle of the century due to uprisings and strong British imperialism, and was completely unprepared for a crisis of this magnitude. Although both international and local assistance was provided, much of China's rural areas were left deserted due to hunger, disease and migration.
1. Collision between the Earth and Theia
Although this list was not compiled in any particular order, we decided to end it on a huge catastrophic event of astronomical proportions that made our planet what it is today. And even if scientists are not 100% sure that this happened, there is good reason to believe that it all really happened that way. About 100 million years after the planet was formed due to the gradual collection of asteroids and other space debris, the young planet Earth collided with the planet Theia, a hypothetical planet in our young solar system. This planet is believed to have been about the size of Mars, or slightly smaller, and which, 4.31 billion years ago, flew towards Earth and shattered into smithereens.
The force of the collision brought the two planets together to form the Earth we know and love today. The pieces ejected from the collision were captured by the planet's gravitational field and then formed the moon. The large size of the natural satellite in relation to Earth supports the collision hypothesis. In addition, scientists analyzed lunar rocks from three Apollo missions and compared them to volcanic rocks found in Hawaii and Arizona and found no difference in oxygen isotopes. Further evidence of the collision is the unusually large core and shell of our planet compared to other rocky worlds in the solar system, like Theia's core and shell mixed with the Earth's shell.
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