The Lake With Four Different Ages

Name: The Lake With Four Different Ages
Genre: Documentary

Dating the Nyos maar becomes a scientific detective story with estimates separated by hundreds of thousands of years.

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Transcript

Earlier dating methods produced Nyos maar ages ranging from 400 years to 350,000 years or older.
Lake Nyos occupies a maar in the Cameroon Volcanic Line.
On August 21st, 1986, that lake released accumulated carbon dioxide.
About 1,700 people died in the Lake Nyos disaster.
A radiocarbon method produced a 400-year age for the Nyos maar.
Aerial photography comparison estimated a minimum Lake Nyos age of 4,000 years.
A potassium-argon method suggested that the lake was more than 350,000 years old.
M. L. Tuttle is listed as an author of the report. The final report was prepared by a United States scientific team.
But inherited radiogenic argon made that enormous estimate unreliable.
The conflict reflected different assumptions about how the maar formed and which materials were dated.
In 2017, researchers used thermoluminescence to constrain the maar’s chronology.
Their average maximum age was 12,300 years, plus or minus 1,500.
New data can support a more solid risk assessment.
Lake Monoun experienced a lethal gas burst on August 15th, 1984 that killed 37 people.
Together, both disasters revealed more about large-scale carbon dioxide exposure.
Pyroclastic surge deposits also make up the Lake Nyos dam.

The ancient deposits did not just surround Lake Nyos—they formed a dam whose collapse could endanger roughly 10,000 people downstream.

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