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Patterns of Plio-Pleistocene Ice Volume Variability Recorded by the Large-Magnitude Explosive Eruptions from the Kamchatka-Kurile Volcanic Arc

Susanne M. Straub1, Brendan Reilly1, Maureen E. Raymo1, Arturo Gómez-Tuena2, Kuo-Lung Wang3,4, Elisabeth Widom5, David Kuentz5, Richard J. Arculus6

  • Affiliations:  1Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at the Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades NY 10964, U.S.A.; 2Laboratorio Nacional de Geoquímica y Mineralogía, Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán 04360, Ciudad de México, Mexico; 3Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang Taipei 11529, Taiwan; 4Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan; 5Department of Geology and Environmental Earth Science, Miami University, Shideler Hall, 250 S. Patterson Ave, Oxford Ohio 45056, U.S.A; 6Research School of Earth Science, Australia National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia 

  • Presentation type: Poster

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

  • Poster Board Number: 14

  • Programme No: 6.1.20

  • Theme 6 > Session 1

Abstract

Marine fallout ash beds can provide continuous, time-precise records of highly explosive arc volcanism that can be linked with the climate record. To investigate for causal links between climate evolution and volcanism during the past four million years, we compiled new and existing data of marine ash beds at ODP Sites 881, 882, and 884 to obtain a time-precise and temporally highly resolved record of the Plio-Pleistocene (0 to 4 Myr) Kamchatka-Kurile arc volcanism. The tephrostratigraphies confirm the cyclicity of the Kamchatka-Kurile arc volcanism and its marked increase at 2.73 Ma just after the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere glaciation. The stacked tephra record reveals periodic peaks in arc volcanicity at ~0.3, ~ 1.0, ~1.6, ~2.5, and ~3.8 Myr that coincide with maxima of the global ice volume variability that have been linked with the amplitude modulation of the precession (0.3, 1.0 Myr) and obliquity (1.6, 2.5 and 3.8 Myr) bands. A model of a decreasing obliquity variance across the mid-Pleistocene Transition at constant precession variance produces an excellent correlation of ash bed cycles with the variability of global benthic δ18O (r2 = 0.75). Collectively, the data imply external modulation of the Kamchatka-Kurile arc volcanism which is not direct orbital forcing but the climate-controlled periodic waxing and waning of the large ice shields that influence the frequency of mantle melting. However, the Kamchatka-Kurile arc volcanism may still influence climate by feedback.