Tephrochronology
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Tephrochronology
250px, Tephra horizons in south-central Iceland. The thick and light coloured layer at the height of the volcanologist's hands is rhyolitic tephra from Hekla. Tephrochronology is a Geochronology, geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. Such an established event provides a "tephra horizon". The premise of the technique is that each volcanic event produces ash with a unique chemical "fingerprint" that allows the deposit to be identified across the area affected by fallout. Thus, once the volcanic event has been independently dated, the tephra horizon will act as time marker. The main advantages of the technique are that the volcanic ash layers can be relatively easily identified in many sediments and that the tephra layers are deposited relatively instantaneously over a wide spatial area. This means they ...
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Tephrochronology Iceland
250px, Tephra horizons in south-central Iceland. The thick and light coloured layer at the height of the volcanologist's hands is rhyolitic tephra from Hekla. Tephrochronology is a Geochronology, geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. Such an established event provides a "tephra horizon". The premise of the technique is that each volcanic event produces ash with a unique chemical "fingerprint" that allows the deposit to be identified across the area affected by fallout. Thus, once the volcanic event has been independently dated, the tephra horizon will act as time marker. The main advantages of the technique are that the volcanic ash layers can be relatively easily identified in many sediments and that the tephra layers are deposited relatively instantaneously over a wide spatial area. This means they pr ...
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Saksunarvatn Tephra
In the science of tephrochronology, the Saksunarvatn tephra is volcanic ejecta that formed an ash layer that is useful in dating Northern European sediment layers that were laid down during the Boreal period, the warm climate phase that followed the cold snap of the Younger Dryas as the earth made the transition from the last Pleistocene glaciation to the current interglacial, or Holocene. This was a period of rapid climatic transitions around the North Atlantic, some of which took place during a matter of decades. Similar effects are evident in independent palaeoclimatic reconstructions obtained from pollen zones, marine and ice-core records, but these sequences cannot be reliably calibrated with one another. The ash layer from a specific volcanic event, deposited simultaneously over wide areas, provides a common reference point or time marker called a horizon, which establishes simultaneity in the sequences wherever that layer is found: this set of techniques is called tephrochro ...
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Tephra
Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, they remain as tephra unless hot enough to fuse into pyroclastic rock or tuff. Tephrochronology is a geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. When a volcano explodes, it releases a variety of tephra including ash, cinders, and blocks. These layers settle on the land and, over time, sedimentation occurs incorporating these tephra layers into the geologic record. Often, when a volcano explodes, biological organisms are killed and their remains are buried within the tephra layer. These fossils are later dated by scientists to determine the age of the fossil and its place within the ge ...
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Tephra Layer
Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, they remain as tephra unless hot enough to fuse into pyroclastic rock or tuff. Tephrochronology is a geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. When a volcano explodes, it releases a variety of tephra including ash, cinders, and blocks. These layers settle on the land and, over time, sedimentation occurs incorporating these tephra layers into the geologic record. Often, when a volcano explodes, biological organisms are killed and their remains are buried within the tephra layer. These fossils are later dated by scientists to determine the age of the fossil and its place within the geo ...
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Carbon-14 Dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon () is constantly being created in the Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of it contains begins to decrease as the undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calc ...
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Hayes Volcano
Hayes Volcano is a stratovolcano in southwestern Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, 135 km northwest of Anchorage, that was not discovered until 1975. It is responsible for a series of six major tephra layers in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska. Hayes was mostly destroyed by at least six catastrophic eruptions between 3,400 and 3,800 years ago, and the average volume of these eruptions was 2.4 cubic km. In comparison, the volume of the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was about 1 cubic km. The eruptions of Hayes Volcano during that time were the most voluminous Holocene eruptions to have occurred in the Cook Inlet region. There is currently no fumarolic activity present. The last eruption of Hayes Volcano occurred roughly 1,200 years ago. It is named after the adjacent Hayes Glacier. Physical setting Hayes Volcano is an ice-shrouded, glacially scoured eruptive center of Quaternary age composed of pyroclastic deposits, volcanic breccia, and lava domes. Although t ...
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Palynology
Palynology is the "study of dust" (from grc-gre, παλύνω, palynō, "strew, sprinkle" and ''-logy'') or of "particles that are strewn". A classic palynologist analyses particulate samples collected from the air, from water, or from deposits including sediments of any age. The condition and identification of those particles, organic and inorganic, give the palynologist clues to the life, environment, and energetic conditions that produced them. The term is commonly used to refer to a subset of the discipline, which is defined as "the study of microscopic objects of macromolecular organic composition (i.e., compounds of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen), not capable of dissolution in hydrochloric or hydrofluoric acids". It is the science that studies contemporary and fossil #Palynomorphs, palynomorphs (paleopalynology), including pollen, spores, orbicules, dinocysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and Scolecodonts, scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter (POM) an ...
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Varve
A varve is an annual layer of sediment or sedimentary rock. The word 'varve' derives from the Swedish word ''varv'' whose meanings and connotations include 'revolution', 'in layers', and 'circle'. The term first appeared as ''Hvarfig lera'' (varved clay) on the first map produced by the Geological Survey of Sweden in 1862. Initially, "varve" referred to each of the separate components comprising a single annual layer in glacial lake sediments, but at the 1910 Geological Congress, the Swedish geologist Gerard De Geer (1858–1943) proposed a new formal definition, where varve means the whole of any annual sedimentary layer. More recently introduced terms such as 'annually laminated' are synonymous with varve. Of the many rhythmites in the geological record, varves are one of the most important and illuminating in studies of past climate change. Varves are amongst the smallest-scale events recognised in stratigraphy. An annual layer can be highly visible because the particles ...
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Ice Core
An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Since the ice forms from the incremental buildup of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper ones, and an ice core contains ice formed over a range of years. Cores are drilled with hand augers (for shallow holes) or powered drills; they can reach depths of over two miles (3.2 km), and contain ice up to 800,000 years old. The physical properties of the ice and of material trapped in it can be used to reconstruct the climate over the age range of the core. The proportions of different oxygen and hydrogen isotopes provide information about ancient temperatures, and the air trapped in tiny bubbles can be analysed to determine the level of atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide. Since heat flow in a large ice sheet is very slow, the borehole temperature is another indicator of temperature in the past. These data can be combined to find the climate m ...
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Icelandic Tephra
Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to: *Icelandic people *Icelandic language *Icelandic alphabet *Icelandic cuisine See also * Icelander (other) * Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandair * Icelandic horse, a breed of domestic horse * Icelandic sheep, a breed of domestic sheep * Icelandic Sheepdog, a breed of domestic dog * Icelandic cattle Icelandic cattle ( is, íslenskur nautgripur ) are a breed of cattle native to Iceland. Cattle were first brought to the island during the Settlement of Iceland a thousand years ago. Icelandic cows are an especially colorful breed with a wide va ..., a breed of cattle * Icelandic chicken, a breed of chicken {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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Marker Horizon
Marker horizons (also referred to as chronohorizons, key beds or marker beds) are stratigraphic units of the same age and of such distinctive composition and appearance, that, despite their presence in separate geographic locations, there is no doubt about their being of equivalent age ( isochronous) and of common origin. Such clear markers facilitate the correlation of strata, and used in conjunction with fossil floral and faunal assemblages and paleomagnetism, permit the mapping of land masses and bodies of water throughout the history of the earth. They usually consist of a relatively thin layer of sedimentary rock that is readily recognized on the basis of either its distinct physical characteristics or fossil content and can be mapped over a very large geographic area.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, J.A., eds. (2005) ''Glossary of Geology'' (5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. As a result, a key bed is useful for correl ...
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Santorini
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera ( English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is the largest island of a small circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a caldera. It forms the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately 73 km2 (28 sq mi) and a 2011 census population of 15,550. The municipality of Santorini includes the inhabited islands of Santorini and Therasia, as well as the uninhabited islands of Nea Kameni, Palaia Kameni, Aspronisi and Christiana. The total land area is 90.623 km2 (34.990 sq mi). Santorini is part of the Thira regional unit. The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,60 ...
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