Fingerprinting the Late Pleistocene tephras of Ciomadul volcano, eastern–central Europe

Harangi, Szabolcs and Molnár, Kata and Schmitt, Axel K. and Dunkl, István and Seghedi, Ioan and Novothny, Ágnes and Molnár, Mihály and Kiss, Balázs and Ntaflos, Theodoros and Mason, Paul R. D. and Lukács, Réka (2020) Fingerprinting the Late Pleistocene tephras of Ciomadul volcano, eastern–central Europe. JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, 35 (1-2). pp. 232-244. ISSN 0267-8179

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Abstract

Late Pleistocene tephras derived by large explosive volcanic eruptions are widespread in the Mediterranean and surrounding areas. They are important isochronous markers in stratigraphic sections and therefore it is important to constrain their sources. We report here tephrochronology results using multiple criteria to characterize the volcanic products of the Late Pleistocene Ciomadul volcano in eastern-central Europe. This dacitic volcano had an explosive eruption stage between 57 and 30 ka. The specific petrological character (ash texture, occurrence of plagioclase and amphibole phenocrysts and their composition), the high-K calc-alkaline major element composition and particularly the distinct trace element characteristics provide a strong fingerprinting of the Ciomadul volcano. This can be used for correlating tephra and cryptotephra occurrences within this timeframe. Remarkably, during this time there were several volcanic eruptions produced tephras with similar glass major element composition. However, these tephras differ from Ciomadul ones by glass trace element abundances, ratios of strongly incompatible trace elements and distinctive mineral cargo that serve as discrimination tools. We used (U-Th)/He zircon dates combined with U-Th in-situ rim dates along with luminescence and radiocarbon dating to constrain the age of the explosive eruptions of Ciomadul that yielded distal tephra layers, but lack of identified proximal deposits.

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