Historical Occurrences
To date, this phenomenon has been observed only twice. The first was in Cameroon at Lake Monoun in 1984, causing the asphyxiation and death of 37 people living nearby. A second, deadlier eruption happened at neighbouring Lake Nyos in 1986, this time releasing over 80 million cubic meters of CO2 and killing between 1,700 and 1,800 people, again by asphyxiation.
Due to the nature of the event, it is hard to determine if limnic eruptions have happened elsewhere. However, a third lake—Lake Kivu—containing massive amounts of dissolved CO2 exists on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Sample sediments from the lake were taken by Professor Robert Hecky from the University of Michigan which showed that an event caused living creatures in the lake to go extinct approximately every thousand years, and caused nearby vegetation to be swept back into the lake.
The Messel pit fossil deposits of Messel, Germany, show evidence of a limnic eruption there in the early Eocene. Among the victims are perfectly preserved insects, frogs, turtles, crocodiles, birds, anteaters, insectivores, early primates and paleotheres.
Read more about this topic: Limnic Eruption
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