A 400-ka tephrochronological framework for Central America from Lake Petén Itzá (Guatemala) sediments

Abstract

Lake Petén Itzá, northern Guatemala, lies within a hydrologically closed basin in the south-central area of the Yucatán Peninsula, and was drilled under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) in 2006. At 16°55′N latitude, the lake is ideally located for study of past climate and environmental conditions in the Neotropical lowlands. Because of its great depth (>160 m), Lake Petén Itzá has a record of continuous sediment accumulation that extends well into the late Pleistocene. A key obstacle to obtaining long climate records from the region is the difficulty of establishing a robust chronology beyond ∼40 ka, the limit of 14C dating. Tephra layers within the Lake Petén Itzá sediments, however, enable development of age/depth relations beyond 40 ka. Ash beds from large-magnitude, Pleistocene-to-Holocene silicic eruptions of caldera volcanoes along the Central American Volcanic Arc (CAVA) were found throughout drill cores collected from Lake Petén Itzá. These ash beds were used to establish a robust chronology extending back 400 ka. We used major- and trace-element glass composition to establish 12 well-constrained correlations between the lacustrine tephra layers in Lake Petén Itzá sediments and dated deposits at the CAVA source volcanoes, and with their marine equivalents in eastern Pacific Ocean sediments. The data also enabled revision of eight previous determinations of erupted volumes and masses, and initial estimates for another four eruptions, as well as the designation of source areas for 14 previously unknown eruptions. The new and revised sedimentation rates for the older sediment successions identify the interglacial of MIS5a between 84 and 72 ka, followed by a stadial between 72 and 59 ka that corresponds to MIS4. We modified the age models for the Lake Petén Itzá sediment sequences, extended the paleoclimate and paleoecological record for this Neotropical region to ∼400 ka, and determined the magnitude and timing of CAVA eruptions

Tephrostratigraphy and Provenance From IODP Expedition 352, Izu‐Bonin Arc: Tracing Tephra Sources and Volumes From the Oligocene to Recent

“…Low viscosity and therefore less effective fragmentation of mafic magmas normally should hinder the development of high and persistent eruption columns, a prerequisite for wide dispersion of the eruptive products (Constantini et al, ; Houghton et al, ). In contrast, the high percentage of widespread deposits from large explosive mafic eruptions in the IBM Expedition 352 sediments (15–25%) opposes this constraint and compares well with the 20% of widespread mafic ash beds found offshore in the eastern Pacific and in lacustrine sediments of Central America (Kutterolf et al, ). Our research on the IBM arc reinforces earlier assumptions that abundant occurrence of widespread mafic tephras in marine sediments is characteristic of arc volcanism rather than a special seldom‐occurring type of eruption, as sometimes suggested in the literature (e.g., Coltelli et al, ; Pérez et al, ).…”

“…Correlations can be established between the marine ash layers at the different sites, and also with possible parental terrestrial tephra deposits and source volcanoes. We use well‐tested major and trace element variation diagrams that have been found by extensive application to be useful for chemical correlation using the Expedition 352 tephra inventory (e.g., (Bryant et al, ; Clift & Blusztajn, ; Kutterolf et al, ; Lowe, ; Lowe et al, ; Pearce et al, ; Schindlbeck et al, ; Westgate et al, ).…”

“…For the 101 ash layers recognized as originating from the IBM system, we can identify their provenance by comparing the trace element compositions of tephras with fields of compositional variation along the IBM arc, using published data (Figure ). A similar approach has been successfully applied to understand the provenance of marine tephras of offshore Central America by utilizing regional compositional variability along the Central American volcanic arc and taking account of systematically changing subduction parameters and the nature of the incoming plate (Kutterolf et al, ; Schindlbeck et al, ). Our analysis assumes similar influences on the IBM subduction zone, as suggested by Tamura et al, ().…”

One Million Years tephra record at IODP Sites U1436 and U1437: Insights into explosive volcanism from the Japan and Izu arcs

“…For large explosive eruptions, the tephra volume that is deposited on the seafloor is often underestimated, but represents a major fraction of the total volume (e.g. Kutterolf, Freundt, & Peréz, ; Kutterolf et al, ; Schindlbeck et al, ). Temporal variations in these volumes and the eruptive frequency can serve as a first‐order proxy for quantitative time‐variations of the erupted volcanic flux at the arc.…”

" Geoelectrical and Electromagnetic Methods Applied to Paleolimnological Studies: Two Examples from Desiccated Lakes in the Basin of Mexico"

“…A few water bodies, however, are much older and were shown to have consistently held water during the late Pleistocene, e.g. Lake Chalco in central Mexico (~500000 years) (Brown et al, 2012) and Lake Petén Itzá in northern Guatemala (~400000 years) (Kutterolf et al, 2016). Recovery of such long sedimentary sequences requires specialized equipment and personnel, which are generally expensive (Dean, 2010).…”