Holocene explosive eruptions of Witori and Dakataua caldera volcanoes in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea

Soil carbon sequestration in phytoliths

“…1. Diagrammatic representation of a typical stratigraphy of the volcanic ash deposits and associated buried paleaosols at the Numundo sites (after Machida et al, 1996).…”

“…: 153835 0 18 00 E), in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. The Williamez Peninsula is a wet tropical environment that has been periodically exposed to volcanic activity throughout the late Quaternary period (Blake and McDougall, 1973;Machida et al, 1996) (Table 1). The Numundo sites are situated on volcanic ash deposits.…”

“…This study examines the PhytOC fraction in some tropical and sub-tropical soils from West New Britain and Australia. Underlying the soils in West New Britain are palaeosols formed in volcanic ash layers: the chronology of these layers is well established (Machida et al, 1996) and is augmented here by carbon dating of phytoliths from selected layers. Fresh unaltered ash layers devoid of phytoliths separate the uppermost layers of each palaeosol that have been affected by the accumulation of organic matter and phytoliths (Parr et al, 2001a).…”

Fire Mountains of the Islands: A History of Volcanic Eruptions and Disaster Management in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands

“…All ve of these eruptions clearly must have had a major impact on the people living nearby, blanketing livable landscapes including reef and forest resources, and creating new land surfaces that would have remained barren and unsettled for years. c. Machida et al (1996).…”

“…Evidence of human occupation on Willaumez Peninsula extends back 35,000-45,000 years, to when human colonisation is thought to have rst taken place, but the best exposed sequences are from the mid-to late Holocene, a time when the area was subject to the known impact of nine explosive eruptions and four minor episodes of more limited extent. 16 Four of ve especially large eruptions of VEI 5-6 scale took place from nearby Witori volcano to the 13 Blake & Bleeker (1970), Blake & McDougall (1973), Blake (1976), Machida et al (1996) and McKee & Kuduon (2005). 14 See, for example, Torrence et al (2000, 2004), Boyd et al (2005, Torrence & Doleman (2007) and Neall et al (2008).…”