100- kyr cyclicity in volcanic ash emplacement: evidence from a 1.1 Myr tephra record from the NW Pacific

Abstract

It is a longstanding observation that the frequency of volcanism periodically changes at times of global climate change. The existence of causal links between volcanism and Earth’s climate remains highly controversial, partly because most related studies only cover one glacial cycle. Longer records are available from marine sediment profiles in which the distribution of tephras records frequency changes of explosive arc volcanism with high resolution and time precision. Here we show that tephras of IODP Hole U1437B (northwest Pacific) record a cyclicity of explosive volcanism within the last 1.1 Myr. A spectral analysis of the dataset yields a statistically significant spectral peak at the ~100 kyr period, which dominates the global climate cycles since the Middle Pleistocene. A time-domain analysis of the entire eruption and δ18O record of benthic foraminifera as climate/sea level proxy shows that volcanism peaks after the glacial maximum and ∼13 ± 2 kyr before the δ18O minimum right at the glacial/interglacial transition. The correlation is especially good for the last 0.7 Myr. For the period 0.7–1.1 Ma, during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT), the correlation is weaker, since the 100 kyr periodicity in the δ18O record diminishes, while the tephra record maintains its strong 100 kyr periodicity.

Magmatic Forcing of Cenozoic Climate?

“…Periods of increased volcanic activity around the Pacific Ocean are shown in the lower panel (Kennett & Thunell, 1975;Kennett et al, 1977;Hein et al, 1978;Cambray & Cadet, 1994;Shane et al, 1995;Carey & Sigurdsson, 2000). (b) Global δ 18 O curve (Zachos et al, 2001) and tephra frequency at the Izu Bonin Mariana arc (central panel, using 10 ka binning after Schindlbeck et al, 2018) and the Pacific Ring of Fire (lower panel, using 1 ka binning after Kutterolf et al, 2013). The Middle Pleistocene Transition leads from dominant~40 ka periodicity of climate oscillations to dominant~100 ka cycles.…”

“…This would imply that submarine volcanism may be inhibited by a deeper water column at the same time as subaerial volcanic eruptions are enhanced by glacial unloading on land. The seafloor bathymetry, primarily determined by oceanic crustal thickness, suggests a sensitivity of mid-ocean ridge volcanism to sea level changes on Milankovitch timescales (e.g., Crowley et al, 2015;Lund & Asimow, 2011;Schindlbeck et al, 2018;Tolstoy, 2015). A peak of hydrothermal activity~15 ka after the last glacial maximum on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (Middletone et al, 2016), Juan de Fuca Ridge (Costa et al, 2017), and at the East Pacific Rise (Lund et al, 2016) has been interpreted as the delayed melt formation following the hydrostatic pressure minimum.…”

“…Jellinek et al () found an ~40 kyr periodicity (and more ambiguous ~17 and 23 kyr periodicities) in the first 400 kyr of the same data set as that of Glazner et al () and showed that periods of fast ice volume reduction anticipate volcanic pulses by ~3 and ~11 kyr for silicic and basaltic magmas, respectively. Schindlbeck et al () analyzed the ~1.1 Myr long tephra record of the Izu‐Bonin arc (within the IODP Hole U1437B) and showed statistically significant spectral peaks with ~100 kyr periodicity (Figure ), occurring systematically a few thousands of years after glacial maxima over the last ~0.7 Myr. Kutterolf et al () compiled a time history of volcanism from around the Pacific Ring of Fire, which accounts for about half of the global length of active plate subduction, and recognized an ~41 kyr periodicity, a correlation with the highest rate of decreasing global ice volumes, and a time lag between deglaciation and volcanic peaks of ~4 kyr.…”

Beginning of the Miocene Climatic Optimum in Central Europe in sediment archive of the Most Basin, Czech Republic

“…The hydrological regime could have changed due to either climate or tectonics; however, it is important to note the coincidence of the polarity reversals and the eccentricity-triggered K minimum. The association of possible tectonic triggers with chemical weathering minima may revoke the association between volcanic activity and orbital cycles mainly that of short eccentricity reported recently for the Pleistocene records (Schindlbeck et al 2018, Kutterolf et al 2019. However, even if the coincidence of the polarity reversal and the CEC step could have resulted from a short-term hiatus, it would probably indicate tectonic activity in an otherwise continuous sedimentary record, i.e.…”

Potential encoding of coupling between Milankovitch forcing and Earth's interior processes in the Phanerozoic eustatic sea-level record

“…These perturbations of Earth's surface from ice-mass and seawater ocean loading/unloading could be transferred to the deep solid Earth system. Observations of the match between orbitally paced Quaternary glacial cycles and global volcanic eruption has led to linkage between Earth's surface and interior processes at the orbital timescale (e.g., Rampino et al, 1979;McGuire et al, 1997;Langmuir, 2009, 2017;Lund and Asimow, 2011;Schindlbeck et al, 2018). Large eruptions have been correlated to 100 kyr glacial cycles at Mount Mazama (Bacon and Lanphere, 2006), Western Europe (Nowell et al, 2006), and the South Eastern United Sates (Jellinik et al, 2004).…”