Identification and Correlation of Visible Tephras in the Lake Suigetsu SG06 Sedimentary Archive, Japan: Chronostratigraphic Mark
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Quaternary Science Reviews 67 (2013) 121e137 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev Identification and correlation of visible tephras in the Lake Suigetsu SG06 sedimentary archive, Japan: chronostratigraphic markers for synchronising of east Asian/west Pacific palaeoclimatic records across the last 150 ka Victoria C. Smith a,*, Richard A. Staff a, Simon P.E. Blockley b, Christopher Bronk Ramsey a, Takeshi Nakagawa c, Darren F. Mark d, Keiji Takemura e, Toru Danhara f, Suigetsu 2006 Project Members1 a Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK b Centre for Quaternary Research, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK c Department of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK d Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), East Kilbride G75 0QF, UK e Beppu Geothermal Research Laboratory, Faculty of Science, Kyoto University, Beppu 874-0903, Japan f Kyoto Fission-track Co. Ltd., 44-4 Tajiri-cho, Ohmiya, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8838, Japan article info abstract Article history: The Lake Suigetsu SG06 sedimentary archive from Honshu Island, central Japan, provides a high- Received 29 August 2012 resolution palaeoenvironmental record, including a detailed record of explosive volcanism from Japan Received in revised form and South Korea. Thirty visible tephra are recorded within the 73 m-long SG06 core, which spans the last 19 January 2013 w150 ka. Here we describe and characterise these tephras based on major element glass composition, Accepted 23 January 2013 which is useful for the identification and correlation of these tephras and the age models of the records Available online in which they are found. Utilising the large number of radiocarbon measurements (n > 600) from ter- restrial plant macrofossils in the Lake Suigetsu SG06 record, we are able to provide precise and accurate Keywords: Lake Suigetsu ages for the tephras from eruptions within the last 50 ka. Glass compositional data of some of the largest Tephrostratigraphy eruptions from Japan (K-Ah, AT, Aso-4, Aso-A, Aso-D, and Ata; sampled at proximal outcrops) are also Radiocarbon dates presented. These data show that the major element glass chemistry is distinctive for many of the visible Glass composition SG06 tephra units, and allows some of the layers to be correlated to known eruptions from volcanoes in Eruption history Japan and South Korea, namely K-Ah (SG06-0967), U-Oki (SG06-1288), AT (SG06-2650), Aso-4 (SG06- 4963/SG06-4979), K-Tz (SG06-5181), Aso-ABCD (SG06-5287) and Ata (SG06-5181). The following ages were obtained for the SG06 tephra units: 3.966e4.064 cal. ka BP (95.4% probability range) for the SG06- 0588 tephra, 10.242e10.329 cal. ka BP (95.4% probability range) for SG06-1293, 19.487 Æ 112 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-1965, 28.425 Æ 194 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-2504, 28.848 Æ 196 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-2534, 29.765 Æ 190 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-2601, 29.775 Æ 191 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-2602, 43.713 Æ 156 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-3485, 46.364 Æ 202 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-3668, 49.974 Æ 337 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-3912, 50.929 Æ 378 SG062012 ka BP (2 s) for SG06-3974, and improved ages for two of the most important tephra markers across Japan, the K-Ah (7.165e7.303 cal. ka BP at 95.4% probability range; SG06-0967) and AT tephra (30.009 Æ 189 SG062012 ka BP at 2 s; SG06-2650). Crown Copyright Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction distal records of volcanism provide insight into the stratigraphic interfingering and superpositioning of tephra deposits from multiple Volcanic ash (tephra) ejected during large explosive eruptions can volcanic sources, and can elucidate the tempo of explosive volcanism travel thousands of kilometres (e.g., Costa et al., 2012) forming (e.g., Smith et al., 2011a), which is particularly important for hazard isochronous markers in widespread sedimentary records. These assessments. Furthermore, synchronising palaeoenvironmental proxy information within these sedimentary archives using tephra layers can provide invaluable information for assessing potential * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 1865 285202. E-mail address: [email protected] (V.C. Smith). spatial leads and lags in palaeoclimate change (e.g., Lane et al., 2011; 1 http://www.suigetsu.org/. Lowe et al., 2012). 0277-3791/$ e see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.01.026 122 V.C. Smith et al. / Quaternary Science Reviews 67 (2013) 121e137 The Lake Suigetsu SG06 sediment archive from Honshu Island, all of the eruptions that are preserved within the post-50 cal. ka central Japan (see below), provides one of the most important part of SG06, which can subsequently be applied to other archives palaeoenvironmental records of the Late Pleistocene in the E. Asia/ in which the same tephras are preserved. W. Pacific region (Walker et al., 2009). For much of its depth, the The composition of glass shards from the tephras should provide Suigetsu sediment is annually layered (varved), and contains ter- a unique fingerprint that can be used to correlate the tephra layers to restrial macrofossils, diatoms and pollen, which provide high- particular eruptions, as well as between sedimentary records. Cores resolution proxy palaeoenvironmental information (Nakagawa exist from all around Japan, with many acquired from the Sea of et al., 2012). This archive can potentially answer some funda- Japan and the Pacific on the Integrated Ocean Drilling Project cruises mental questions about Asian palaeoclimate and the drivers of (e.g., Hunt and Najman, 2003 and those reported in Furuta et al., global climatic change when combined with other records and 1986, and Machida and Arai, 2003). Numerous Japanese lakes have datasets. Numerous tephra layers are also preserved within the also been cored, including Lake Biwa (Takashima-oki core; Suigetsu sediments, which are the key to correlating and syn- Satoguchi et al., 1993; Nagahashi et al., 2004), Ichi-no-Megata chronising this record to marine and terrestrial archives in the re- (Okuno et al., 2011), and Lake Mikata (Takemura et al., 1994). gion and beyond. These correlations are essential in establishing Some of these marine and terrestrial records also provide environ- a palaeoclimatic event stratigraphy for the Asia/Pacific region, such mental information from the analysis of proxies and these records as that developed for the North Atlantic (e.g., Blockley et al., 2012). could potentially be precisely synchronised using tephra (including However, a detailed tephrostratigraphy is first required, and the using non-visible cryptotephra in future studies) to further under- layers have to be compositionally characterised so that they can be stand temporal and spatial variations in palaeoclimate. definitively ascribed to particular eruptions or reliably correlated to other distal tephra layers. 1.1. The SG06 record from Lake Suigetsu Japanese researchers, such as Arai (1972), pioneered tephra research, mapping the extent of the Japanese tephra layers in order The SG06 sediment core was extracted in 2006 from Lake Sui- to use them as correlative and relative-age stratigraphic tools. The getsu, Honshu Island, central Japan (35350000N, 135530000E; Fig. 1), Japanese volcanic arc is particularly productive, and calderas in the as part of the ‘Suigetsu Varves 2006’ project. The 73.19 m-long core north and south have been the source of many large explosive provides a continuous record of sedimentation spanning the last eruptions. These eruptions dispersed ash over most of Japan, and w150 ka (Nakagawa et al., 2012; Fig. 2). The high-resolution form a well-defined chrono-stratigraphic framework (Machida and palaeoenvironmental archive contains 31 visible tephra layers, Arai, 2003). Tephrochronology requires the characteristics of the and cryptotephra have also been identified, with pilot studies units to be unique (within defined age periods) so that the ash layers showing peaks in shard concentrations approximately every 0.5 m can be reliably correlated to specific volcanoes and eruptions. in the Pleistocene sediments (Staff et al., in press). Tephras are typically characterised using the composition of the Lake Suigetsu was cored numerous times before the 2006 cam- glass shards that are blown to distal regions (e.g., Shane, 2000; paign. Most significantly, four piston cores (SG1, SG2, SG3 and SG4), Lowe, 2011). Tephra researchers in Japan realised the need to extending to w16 m, and a longer 75 m machine-drilled core (SG93) characterise the units, well before electron microprobes were were extracted in 1993 (Takemura et al.,1994; Fukusawa et al.,1995; commonly used to analyse geological material, and used the Kitagawa et al., 1995; Yasuda et al., 2004; Fig. 3). These older cores refractive index of the glass and the phenocryst phases to help were correlated to the 100 m-long Lake Mikata core (Fig. 1C) by identify tephra units (Arai,1972). However, the refractive indices are Takemura et al. (1994) using the visible tephra layers. The Suigetsu often not unique to particular eruptions (cf. Katoh et al., 2004) and in cores contain many tephra layers and some have been correlated to the very distal regions the denser crystals are often not found. Here, the K-Ah, U-Oki, Sakate, DMs, DHg, DSs, AT, Aso-4, K-Tz, Aso-ABCD, we determine the composition of the glass shards in visible tephra and Ata eruptions (Takemura et al., 1994; Nakagawa et al., 2012; layers found within the Lake Suigetsu SG06 sediment core, using Fig. 3; see below for details), based upon the stratigraphic position, a wavelength-dispersive electron microprobe, to correlate tephras appearance of the units, thickness (which partly reflects eruption to source eruptions, and test some of the inferred correlations magnitude and dispersal), and in some cases the refractive indices (Takemura et al., 1994; Nakagawa et al., 2012; see below).