A quick disclaimer.
I am being paid to make this video by the European Union and NS Kožare as part of a
series meant to share several wonderful geologic features within the nation of Slovakia.
What you are looking at is the remains of central Europe's last volcanic eruption, well
at least if we exclude Germany from this group of nations.
Here, in Romania's central region is a massive now lake filled explosion crater termed a
maar, where 27,000 years ago a powerful explosion occurred, resulting in the formation of this
300 meter deep and 1.5 kilometer wide feature.
Yet, Ciomadul is not the only geologically recent volcano to have erupted within central
Europe.
As, within Slovakia is a 100 meter high volcanic vent that is seemingly hidden away on a hillside
4 kilometers east southeast of the village of Orovnica.
This feature is known as Putikov vrsok, and in a geologic sense did not originate so long
ago.
As, while modern humans were not in Europe to witness its eruption, neanderthals likely
once lived in the vicinity and may have witnessed the spectacular lava fountains this vent created.
As, Putikov vrsok erupted once a mere 102,000 years ago.
During this eruption, basanite composition lava was ejected in several hundred meter
high lava fountains, which then fell back to the ground, creating a flow of molten rock
which advanced 3000 meters before the eruption ended.
The outline of the 3 square kilometer or 1.16 square mile patch of ground this ancient lava
flow covered can still be seen today, as the dark colored volcanic rocks shaded this region
a different hue than the surrounding forest.
With such a young volcanic vent, you might ask, is there a chance that Slovakia will
be the site of another volcanic eruption in my lifetime?
To this I say it's theoretically possible, but realistically its unlikely, as the chance
of such an occurrence is absurdly low, just barely being above zero.
As during the last 3.5 million years, Slovakia has been the site of 15 volcanic eruptions,
with one eruption occurring on average every approximately 230,000 years.
Yet, this metric doesn't tell the whole story.
As, all volcanic eruptions during the last 1.5 million years of the country occurred
in two separate volcanic fields.
That is, regions not consisting of a single towering volcanic cone but rather a series
of individual small to medium sized vents which only erupt once and then never erupt
again due to a weak supply of molten rock underlying these regions.
7 of these 8 eruptions in the last 1.5 million years occurred in a 440 square kilometer region
known as the Nógrád-Gömör volcanic field.
The most notable of the vents in this field involves the remains of a volcanic neck which
erupted 990,000 years ago.
Yet, you might notice that none of this field's eruptions are any younger than 780,000 years
in age.
That is because this volcanic field which was active intermittently between 7.0 and
0.78 million years ago has now been extinct for some time, and will never erupt again.
Thus, the numerous eruptions that occurred geologically recently in this field are throwing
off the overall average, meaning the odds of a volcanic eruption are far lower than
once every 230,000 years.
And, even in the highly unlikely event a regional volcanic eruption was to unexpectedly occur,
in my opinion, there would be months to years of warning signs beforehand.
As, the only area which today could theoretically produce a future volcanic eruption is an 830
square kilometer region that largely encompasses the remains of the long extinct Štiavnica
supervolcano.
This region is known as the Central Slovakia volcanic field, where vents of a basaltic
to basanite composition used weak points in the crust such as fault lines as paths of
least resistance to erupt from.
The formation of the Putikov vrsok cinder cone likely occurred over a brief 2 week long
eruption, where only minor amounts of ash were ejected through intermittent strombolian
explosions that threw bombs of lava in a several hundred meter radius.
The advancing lava flows had a basanite composition, and were quite runny, eventually causing a
section of the Hron River to divert further to the north.
If you were to visit this extinct cinder cone today, the lava rocks you might find would
look like those seen in this photograph.