“…When preserved subaerially, in ice cores, or in marine and lacustrine sedimentary records, these layers can serve as stratigraphic marker beds that can be used to infer the timing and magnitude of eruptive activity [e.g., Federman and Carey , ; Dugmore , ; Brown et al ., ; Carter et al ., ; Eden et al ., ; Knudsen and Eirı´ksson , ; Larsen et al ., ; Svensson et al ., ], provide independent chronological constraints [e.g., Kristjánsdóttir et al ., ; Stoner et al ., ; Ólafsdóttir et al ., ; Austin et al ., ], and can be spatially correlated to provide event‐coeval tie points [e.g., Brown et al ., ; van den Bogaard et al ., ; Grönvold et al ., ; Kristjánsdóttir et al ., ]. Assuming conservative tracer properties, sedimentological, petrological, and geochemical analysis of tephra can be used to inform about the timing and source of eruptive events [e.g., Shane , ; van den Bogaard and Schmincke , ; Lowe , ], identify systematic patterns or variance in terms of eruptive style, eruption magnitude, and repose periods [e.g., Bonadonna et al ., ; Larsen and Eiríksson , ; Le Friant et al ., ], assess the completeness of terrestrial records [e.g., Carter et al ., ; Le Friant et al ., ], and examine the nature and evolution of volcanism during the construction of a volcanic complex [e.g., Larsen , ; Shane et al ., ]. While subaerially deposited tephra records can be obscured by burial and/or dense vegetation, and may be subject to extensive erosion [e.g., Le Friant et al ., ; Shane and Wright , ], evaluation of tephra incorporated into continuously accumulating sediment records can often make for the most complete archive of explosive volcanic events.…”