A new study theorizes that in 540 CE, a small and until recently seemingly unremarkable volcano in southern Mexico, El Chichón, was responsible for plunging the Maya civilization into a hundred years of chaos. The Maya prospered from 250 to 900 CE, they developed calendars, a writing system, new mathematics, amazing cities and pyramids. However, there remains a mysterious 100-year period during which the Maya inexplicably stopped construction projects, abandoned some regions and engaged in war, that archeologists have been unable to explain. An early indication an ancient volcanic eruption could have been the reason behind the gap came from sulfur particles trapped within the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. Michael Sigl, a chemist with the Paul Scherrer Institute, determined a massive eruption might have occurred in 540 CE, coinciding with the beginning of the Maya "Dark Age." Tree ring records also suggest that sulfur particles up high in the atmosphere triggered a global