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Improving the longer-term record of explosive volcanism in the Mexico City region

Alastair G. E. Hodgetts1^,2^, Sebastian F. L. Watt2, Victoria C. Smith3, Ivan Sunyé-Puchol3,4, Larry G. Mastin5, Erik T. Brown6, Maarten Blaauw7, Blas Valero‑Garcés8, Mona Stockhecke6, Beatriz Ortega‑Guerrero9, Margarita Caballero9, Socorro Lozano‑García10, José L. Arce10, Josef P. Werne11, Peter Fawcett12, Anders J. Noren13, Kristina Brady-Shannon13, Rodrigo Martínez-Abarca14

  • Affiliations:  1 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom; 2 School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 3 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 4 Department of Earth Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 5 U.S. Geological Survey, Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, United States of America; 6 Large Lakes Observatory and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota, Duluth, United States of America; 7 The 14CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment and Chronology, Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom; 8 Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científcas (IPE- CSIC), Zaragoza, Spain; 9 Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, Mexico; 10 Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, Mexico; 11 Department of Geology and Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States of America; 12 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States of America; 13 Continental Scientific Drilling Facility, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States of America; 14 Institute for Geosystems and Bioindication, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany 

  • Presentation type: Talk

  • Presentation time: Friday 11:15 - 11:30, Room R280

  • Programme No: 3.4.10

  • Theme 3 > Session 4

Abstract

The Mexico City region is home to over 25 million people, making it one of the largest populations in the world. This densely populated megacity is surrounded by numerous, active, long-lived (polygenetic) volcanoes, such as Popocatépetl and Nevado de Toluca. It also comprises a highly active volcanic field which includes over 200 shorter-lived (monogenetic) volcanoes, visible at the surface today. Due to being a fiercely built-up area, the eruptive histories of these hazardous volcanoes are poorly constrained, covering only the largest eruptions over the past 40,000 years. This talk will present new research findings which provide a near-complete record of explosive volcanism which has impacted the Mexico City region over the past 400,000 years, a tenfold increase on what is currently known. This record contains eruptions from both polygenetic and monogenetic volcanoes as well as more distal caldera volcanoes from outside of the Mexico basin and Mexico. Through the use of a deep (over 500 m) sediment core, collected from a lake on the south-eastern edge of Mexico City (Lake Chalco), combined with new fieldwork, geochemistry and geochronology; a detailed volcanic stratigraphy of diverse eruptions impacting the Mexico City region is reconstructed over a timeframe that is comparable to the lifetimes of many of the surrounding volcanoes. Alongside presenting new chronological information, this research delivers the first long-term eruptive history of volcanic activity affecting the Mexico City region and an accurate frequency of impactful eruptions on the megacity over the past 400,00 years.