A just completed six year-long study of the Maya city of Palenque found evidence that the city may have been destroyed by superheated volcanic gases and covered with ash. Acid rain caused by volcanoes and volcanic ash continue to severely damage the ruins. Meanwhile, Mexico’s government issued a report on December 17, 2011 that continued a volcanic eruption alert for Mexico City. The massive volcano, Popocatépetl, has awakened. While people around the world debate the meaning of the Maya calendar’s end in December of 2012, Mexican government leaders and scientists must face a far more definite threat – massive casualties and property damage from a volcanic eruption near one of its major cities.
Mexico City is ringed by active, dormant and hopefully, extinct volcanoes. Its metropolitan area of 21.2 million inhabitants, sits in the shadow of Popocatépetl, which is one of the most violent volcanoes in Mexico. It is (18,491 ft (5,636 m) high. Government officials are concerned that a sudden, explosive eruption of Popocatépetl or one of the other volcanoes within the metropolitan area could cause several million casualties. It would be impossible to evacuate a substantial percentage of the mega-city’s population on short notice. There is also the ever present danger that a new volcano will suddenly push through the soil in a densely populated area. It has happened before in Mexico. There is almost nothing an architect can do to prevent catastrophe when a building is subjected to direct contact with molten lava. The structure either burns or melts. Around 150 AD the Xitle volcano in the suburbs of present day Mexico City erupted, causing the abandonment of two cities, Cuicuilco and Copilco. They were later covered by lava. Around 930 AD the Xocoteptl volcano in the northwest suburbs of Mexico City exploded with a force equal to or greater than Krakatoa (Indonesia) in 1883. Had that explosion occurred today, perhaps five million people would have been killed.
The planet experiences sudden catastrophism: Recent studies of historic volcanic activity by Dr. Martin el Pozzo at the university’s Institute of Geophysics suggest that catastrophic volcanic eruptions may have been primary causes of the collapse of several of Mexico’s civilizations including a massive drop in the Maya population between 830 AD and 915 AD. Although located in the Maya lands, El Chichon volcano was ignored in the past by archaeologists because it was thought to have been dormant for several thousand years. Pozzo’s studies in 2008 found that volcanic tephra (ash) had on several occasions covered the southern Maya region. In particular, eruptions around 539 AD and 900 AD seemed to have been particularly traumatic. The 539 AD eruption apparently affected the climate of a region extending northward into the Southeastern United States, Many indigenous communities; both in the Maya lands and the Southeast were abandoned. The Hopewell Culture in the Ohio Valley suddenly collapsed about this time. Pozzo has theorized that El Chichon’s eruption combined with a massive eruption of the Ceboruco volcano in western Mexico altered the climate of much of North America, causing year-round winter temperatures and droughts. These are natural events over which man has no control . . . and they will probably happen again.
