MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIE TY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC mAGAZiNe OF THe SOCie TY FOR SCieNCe & THe PUbLiC
PUBLISHER elizabeth marincola
EDITOR IN CHIEF Tom Siegfried
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Mystery volcano’s name
revealed despite gag order
Breaking news in this issue: A volcano
thought to have erupted in 1258 actually
blew its stack in 1257.
That really is big news for volcano fans
everywhere — not so much because of
the new date, but because the site of the
volcano has long been one of volcanol-
ogy’s biggest mysteries. Ice-core samples
dated to 1258 contain unusual amounts of sulfur, a surefire
signature that a huge volcanic eruption occurred somewhere
shortly before. Scientists believe it was the most powerful vol-
canic blast since humans learned to write. But no one knew
where on Earth the eruption occurred — the sulfur circulated
throughout the atmosphere before coming to rest in polar ice.
But now, somebody knows — or at least, claims to have
strong evidence for — the culprit volcano’s identity. Franck
Lavigne, at a geophysics meeting in Iceland, declared that he
and his collaborators had “new and solid evidence” for the
site of the 1258 eruption, with additional data indicating that
the actual date was late spring or summer of 1257. Lavigne
refused, though, to say just what volcano he was talking about.
Like many scientists, Lavigne was afraid to reveal a scientific discovery because he and his colleagues plan to publish
the finding in a scientific journal. Some journals threaten
scientists with refusal to publish their work if the results have
already been reported in the news media. So the scientists
consider themselves gagged, unable to share their knowledge
with other experts at conferences held for just that purpose.
Journals that enforce such gag orders should be ashamed
of themselves. Such policies impede the free flow of information among scientists and delay the delivery of interesting and
important news from science to the public. It’s bad for science
and bad for science’s efforts to gain the public’s appreciation.
In this case, though, the public didn’t lose out entirely.
Science News contributing editor Alexandra Witze, on the
scene, consulted experts at the meeting who agreed that the
photos shown in Lavigne’s presentation depicted Indonesia.
Further information posted obscurely on the Internet (and
since taken down) provided more clues. It’s a very good bet
that the mystery volcano is Rinjani, on the island of Lombok,
as one outside expert has publicly speculated (see Page 12).
Sometime in the months ahead, a journal will publish,
and other media will report, this conclusion. But, despite the
current system’s cumbersome efforts at scientific censorship,
you read it here first. — Tom Siegfried, Editor in Chief
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