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Composition of widespread volcanic glass in deep-sea sediments of the Southern Pacific Ocean: an Antarctic source inferred

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Abstract

Widespread Plio-Pleistocene (2.43-0.06 Ma) tephra zones recognised in deep-sea cores from high latitudes (>60°) in the Southern Pacific Ocean were thought to have originated from calc-alkaline rhyolitic eruptions in New Zealand, some 5000 km distant. Electron microprobe analyses of the glasses reveal a wide diversity of alkalic felsic compositions, as well as minor components of basic and intermediate glasses, incompatible with a New Zealand Neogene source but similar to contemporaneous eruptives from the Antarctic region. Most tephra zones are trachytic; seven zones are peralkaline rhyolite. The rhyolitic zones represent a deep-sea record of widespread silicic eruptions from continental Antarctica, possibly Marie Byrd Land. The extent of these rhyolitic zones suggest a greater frequency of large explosive eruptions in Antarctica than previously documented. The coarse grain size of some of the shards (up to 3 mm), their great distance from the closest sources (>1600 km for some cores), and the presence of nonvolcanic ice-rafted debris indicate some of the glasses, especially the more basic compositions, may have been ice-rafted, contrary to previous suggestions of a fallout origin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P. O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand

    Philip AR Shane & Paul C Froggatt

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  1. Philip AR Shane
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  2. Paul C Froggatt
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Shane, P.A., Froggatt, P.C. Composition of widespread volcanic glass in deep-sea sediments of the Southern Pacific Ocean: an Antarctic source inferred. Bull Volcanol 54, 595–601 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00569943

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