Lake Toba

About

Lake Toba (Indonesian: Danau Toba, Toba Batak: ᯖᯀᯬ ᯖᯬᯅ, Tao Toba) is a large natural lake in North Sumatra and Indonesia. The lake is the massive caldera of the Toba supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 metres (2, 953 ft), and stretches from 2.88°N 98.52°E / 2.88; 98.52 to 2.35°N 99.1°E / 2.35; 99.1. The lake is about 100 kilometres (62 miles) long, 30 kilometres (19 mi) wide, and up to 505 metres (1, 657 ft) deep. It is the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world. Toba Caldera is one of twenty geoparks in Indonesia, and was recognised in July 2020 as one of the UNESCO Global Geoparks. Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption estimated at VEI 8 that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago, temporarily changing the earth's climate. Recent advances in dating methods suggest a more precise eruption date of 74,000 years ago. It is the largest-known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years. A theory known as the Toba catastrophe theory postulates that this event held global consequences for Earth's human population. As the eruption likely would have killed most humans along with many other creatures living at the time, the theory suggests, it could account for an apparent population bottleneck in central east Africa and India a

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.