Volcanic ash can be used as a time horizon because it records the “unique” magmatic composition at the time of eruption which can be used to identify the provenance (age and source) of the ash.
This project targets the main centres of explosive activity in Europe (Iceland/Azores to Turkey/Greece) and characterises the chemistry of proximal tephra.
In parallel distal tephras are studied in (a) marine and lake cores containing environmental proxy data , and (b) archaeological sites and caves containing evidence of changing human migration patterns. Proximal-distal matching of chemistries allows for proximal age data to be assigned to the marine/lake cores and the archaeological caves/sites. Integration of data over the last 80ka allows us to comment on the causative relationships between the timing of human migration and environmental change.
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| Distal Icelandic tephra (basalt-rhyolite) believed to have originated from Katla volcano Iceland ca 10-15ka ago |
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| Proof of concept – chemical match between the First Plinian proximal fall deposits of the Campanian Ignimbrite (39ka) and the distal tephra layer in Lago Grande di Monticchio |
Staff:
Research students:
- P.Albert
- J.Cross
- A.Todman
Funding: NERC RESET Consortium 2008-2013
Links:NERC Consortium - http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/reset/