A major volcanic cataclysm may have been ultimately responsible for the spread of the Black Death across Europe in the 1340s.

In a lovely example of scientific investigation at its best, researchers pieced together multiple lines of evidence to reveal what appears to have been a volcanically induced climate micro-crisis – and showed how it influenced trade and travel, bringing plague pathogens to just the wrong moment in time and space.

It was a perfect storm of conditions that could have unleashed the world's second plague pandemic , resulting in the deaths of millions of people across the European continent.

Related: The Black Death Shaped Human Evolution, And We're Still in Its Shadow

Peaking in the middle of the 1300s, the Black Death is widely regarded as one of the most deva

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