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Lake sediments in Eklutna Lake, Alaska, reveal the presence of turbidites within varved sequences. These turbidites, which result from flood events and earthquakes, show a similar macroscopic appearance. In order to use turbidites to reconstruct flood variability and/or seismic history in the lake basin, it is crucial to determine the trigger of the turbidity currents. This study examined the turbidite caused by the AD 1964 Great Alaska earthquake as well as turbidites linked to historical flood events in order to differentiate between these earthquake-triggered and flood-triggered turbidites. In a suite of samples from throughout the lake, distinctive proxies are identified that can be associated with event-specific flow characteristics. The study presents straightforward discrimination methods related to the sedimentology and geochemical components of the turbidites. These methods are also applicable to other lakes, particularly proglacial lakes where the sediment composition of onshore and offshore sources is similar. Finally, the discrimination of the turbidite trigger can be used to reconstruct the palaeoflood and seismic history.

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Glass composition-based correlations of volcanic ash (tephra) traditionally rely on extensive manual plotting. Many previous statistical methods for testing correlations are limited by using geochemical means, masking diagnostic variability. We suggest that machine learning classifiers can expedite correlation, quickly narrowing the list of likely candidates using well-trained models. Eruptives from Alaska's Aleutian Arc-Alaska Peninsula and Wrangell volcanic field were used as a test environment for 11 supervised classification algorithms, trained on nearly 2000 electron probe microanalysis measurements of glass major oxides, representing 10 volcanic sources. Artificial neural networks and random forests were consistently among the top-performing learners (accuracy and kappa > 0.96). Their combination as an average ensemble effectively improves their performance. Using this combined model on tephras from Eklutna Lake, south-central Alaska, showed that predictions match traditional methods and can speed correlation. Although classifiers are useful tools, they should aid expert analysis, not replace it. The Eklutna Lake tephras are mostly from Redoubt Volcano. Besides tephras from known Holocene-active sources, Holocene tephra geochemically consistent with Pleistocene Emmons Lake Volcanic Center (Dawson tephra), but from a yet unknown source, is evident. These tephras are mostly anchored by a highly resolved varved chronology and represent new important regional stratigraphic markers.