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Integrated proximal-distal Tephrochronology of Towada Caldera, northern Honshu (Japan)

Emma J. Watts1 ; Paul G. Albert1; Takehiko Suzuki2; Victoria C. Smith3; Gwydion Jones1, Neil Loader1; Michael Dee4; David Chivall1, Daisuke Ishimura2, Danielle McLean3, Eliza Cook5; Takashi Kudo6, Richard Staff3; Takeshi Nakagawa7, Ikuko Kibata7; Fumikatsu Nishizawa7 and Ken kehara6.

  • Affiliations:  1Department of Geography, Swansea University, Swansea, UK; 2 Department of Geography, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan; 3 School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; 4 Centre for Isotope Research (CIO), University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands; 5 Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 6 Geological Survey of Japan, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan; 7 Research Centre for Palaeoclimatology, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan; Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History, Odawara, Japan. 

  • Presentation type: Poster

  • Presentation time: Tuesday 16:30 - 18:30, Room Poster Hall

  • Poster Board Number: 145

  • Programme No: 3.13.14

  • Theme 3 > Session 13

Abstract

Integrating proximal volcanic records with distal tephra (marine-lacustrine-ice) archives is essential to: reliably reconstructing the past eruptive activity of a volcano, tackling potential near-source eruption under-reporting, and offering opportunities to robustly constrain the timing and scale of past eruptions. Towada volcano, located in northeast Japan, became active ~220 ka and has undergone a minimum of 20 eruptive episodes. Towada provides an opportunity to showcase an integrated proximal-distal tephra record, with the volcano providing a key node in the Tephrochronological framework of East Asia and beyond. Large-magnitude events at Towada caldera are known to produce widely traced tephra deposits as both visible and cryptotephra (non-visible) layers, thus providing the potential to better constrain its eruptive history and tephra dispersals. Here, we present new volcanic glass geochemical data (EMP and LA-ICP-MS) from proximal sequences, alongside tephra deposits preserved in lacustrine, marine, and ice core records to further refine the ash fall distributions associated with large-scale eruptions at Towada. Alongside this, we report improved ages for the last two caldera forming eruptions To-H and Towada Ofudo (To-Of), with a precise wiggle-match 14C date for To-H allowing a re-assessment of the regional 14C marine reservoir correction factor for the NW Pacific during the late glacial. These new data allow us to present an updated chronology of the Towada caldera eruptive event stratigraphy, highlighting the requirement of detailed geochemical fingerprinting when correlating tephra units, whilst also emphasising the importance of distal sedimentary records in evaluating eruptive histories in Japan.