Tenmei eruption
1783 eruption of Mount Asama
The Tenmei eruption (Japanese: 天明大噴火, Tenmei daifunka) was a large eruption of Mount Asama that occurred in 1783 (Tenmei 3). This eruption was one of the causes of the Tenmei famine. It is estimated that about 1,500–1,624 people were killed in the eruption. The event is known in Japanese as The Burning of Asama in Tenmei (天明の浅間焼け, Tenmei no Asamayake).
Background
Japan is situated along a zone of convergence between at least four major and minor tectonic plates. The Philippine Sea Plate dives beneath the Amurian Plate and Okinawa Plate along the Nankai Trough and Ryukyu Trench in southern Japan. In northern Japan, the Pacific Plate subducts beneath the Okhotsk Plate, part of the larger North American Plate, along the Japan and Kuril trenches. The subduction process is related to the production of volcanoes in Japan as the downgoing oceanic slab undergoes dehydration at depths of roughly 90 to 100 km beneath the overriding plate. Water in the structure of hydrated minerals interact with the upper mantle, lowering its melting point. As the mantle begins to melt, its density decreases and rises through the upper crust, forming a volcanic vent.
“Tenmei eruption” enters the record as 1783 eruption of Mount Asama. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tenmei, eruption and Mount can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106959236. Authority coordinates are 36.406, 138.523. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1783.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tenmei eruption” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.