1 Nephi 12:4 wrote:And it came to pass that I saw a mist of darkness on the face of the land of promise; and I saw lightnings, and I heard thunderings, and earthquakes, and all manner of tumultuous noises; and I saw the earth and the rocks, that they rent; and I saw mountains tumbling into pieces; and I saw the plains of the earth, that they were broken up; and I saw many cities that they were dsunk; and I saw many that they were burned with fire; and I saw many that did tumble to the earth, because of the quaking thereof.
1 Nephi 19:11 wrote:For thus spake the prophet: The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up.
3 Nephi 9 wrote:For thus spake the prophet: The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up.
Only Mormon apologists need a naturalistic explanation for the Book of Mormon events. For skeptics the logic is that Smith wrote what he thought would sound good, based on what he knew. He thought that a spectacular divine judgement would sound good, so he threw in all the special effects that he had ever heard associated with great disasters. Some of the elements fit with volcanic eruptions, because volcanic eruptions have long been paradigms of disaster. Some of the elements do not fit, in particular the whirlwinds and the "opening of the earth" to bury cities, not under a layer of lava or ash but "in the depths of the earth". Some elements of volcanic eruptions are not present, like lava flows or heavy falls of ash from the sky.
In particular the famous episode of darkness in 3 Nephi 8, where people survived but could not light fires for three days, absolutely does not fit with any volcanic activity. A CO2 layer below head height, so that people could breathe oxygen above it but not light fires within it, could only exist if a volcano somehow emitted a smooth pool of CO2 onto a dead level plane. With any slope to the ground at all, CO2 flows like the fluid it is. It does not stick to the ground at even thickness like peanut butter. It pools in the valleys to much more than head height, and leaves the hills free of CO2. So a flow of CO2 from a volcano would produce the story, "Everyone in the valley suffocated before they could even think about lighting fires, and the people up on the hillsides noticed no ill effects." It would not lead anyone to report problems with lighting.
Smith wasn't trying to describe a volcanic eruption at all, so he had no reason to place his story in a place with volcanoes.
I was a teenager before it was cool.