geochemical variability in distal and proximal glass from the youngest toba tuff eruption the youngest toba tuff ytt erupted at ca 74 ka is a distinctive and widespread tephra marker across south and southeast asia the climatic human and environmental consequences of the ytt eruption are widely debated although a considerable body of geochemical data is available for this unit there has not been a systematic study of the variability of the ash geochemistry intrinsic magmatic and extrinsic post depositional chemical variations bring fundamental information regarding the petrogenesis of the magma the distribution of the tephra and the interaction between the ash and the receiving environment considering the importance of the geochemistry of the ytt for stratigraphic correlations and eruptive models it is central to the ytt debate to quantify and interpret such variations here we collate all published geochemical data on the ytt glass including analyses from 67 sites described in the literature and three new samples two principal sources of chemical variation are investigated i compositional zonation of the magma reservoir and ii post depositional alteration post depositional leaching is responsible for up to ca 11 differences in na2o k2o and ca 1 differences in sio2 al2o3 ratios in ytt glass from marine sites continental tephras are 2 higher in na2o k2o and 3 higher in sio2 al2o3 with respect to the marine tephra we interpret such post depositional glass alteration as related to seawater induced alkali migration in marine environments crystal fractionation and consequential magmatic differentiation which produced order of magnitude variations in trace element concentrations reported in the literature also produced major element differences in the ytt glass feo al2o3 ratios vary by about 50 which is analytically significant these variations represent magmatic fractionation involving fe bearing phases we also compared major element concentrations in ytt and oldest toba tuff ott ash samples to identify potential compositional differences that could constrain the stratigraphic identity of the morgaon ash western india no differences between the ott and ytt samples were observed

metal troilite magnetite assemblage in shock veins of sixiangkou meteorite the first natural occurrence of metal troilite magnetite assemblage composed of fe ni metal and magnetite dendrites and a groundmass of troilite was identified in the shock veins of the sixiangkou l6 chondrite which contain abundant high pressure minerals this assemblage suggests a liquid miscibility among metal fes and iron oxide and subsequently quenching under pressure components of magnetite could be in origin related to chromite that was embedded and dissolved in an fe ni s liquid cr2o3 dissociated from chromite was mainly incorporated into garnet and magnesiowustite in the fine grained matrix of shock veins in which chromium behaves as a lithophile element at the p t conditions experienced by the shock veins the occurrence of metal troilite magnetite assemblage suggests that the shock veins were still under pressure at temperatures from 900 to 950degreesc during solidification of fe ni s or fe ni s o liquid hence indicating a long duration of high pressure in the shock veins copyright c 2002 elsevier science ltd

contribution of grain size and compositional data from the bengal fan sediment to the understanding of toba volcanic event abstract toba tephra layers in cores from the bengal fan have been studied to characterize their granulometric mineralogic and geochemical features the layers are silt sized sediments with no significant non volcanic contamination the samples are very homogeneous glass shards have moderate hydration about 6 water a calc alkaline character and a rhyolitic composition the major and trace element compositions indicate an orogenic affinity and coincide with literature data for the youngest toba tephra level ytt 75 ka x ray diffraction xrd data indicate that the glass is the dominant phase with minor feldspar biotite and quartz the grain size analyses of the beds show discontinuous vertical variation and no linear trends from south to north over about 1500 km the vertical granulometric gap of the layers probably represents a single pyroclastic emplacement unit subjected to pre depositional particle aggregation

climate volcanism feedback and the toba eruption of 74 000 years ago abstract a general feedback between volcanism and climate at times of transition in the quaternary climate record is suggested exemplified by events accompanying the toba eruption 74 000 yr ago the largest known late quaternary explosive volcanic eruption the toba paroxysm occurred during the 18o stage 5a 4 transition a period of rapid ice growth and falling global sea level which may have been a factor in creating stresses that triggered the volcanic event toba is estimated to have produced between 1015 and 1016 g of fine ash and sulfur gases lofted in co ignimbrite ash clouds to heights of at least 32 5 km which may have led to dense stratospheric dust and sulfuric acid aerosol clouds these conditions could have created a brief dramatic cooling or volcanic winter followed by estimated annual northern hemisphere surface temperature decreases of 3 to 5 c caused by the longer lived aerosols summer temperature decreases of 10 c at high northern latitudes adjacent to regions already covered by snow and ice might have increased snow cover and sea ice extent accelerating the global cooling already in progress evidence for such climate volcanic feedback following milankovitch periodicities is found at several climatic transitions

high pressure phases in shock induced melt veins of the umbarger l6 chondrite constraints of shock pressure we report a previously undocumented set of high pressure minerals in shock induced melt veins of the umbarger l6 chondrite high pressure minerals were identified with transmission electron microscopy tem using selected area electron diffraction and energy dispersive x ray spectroscopy ringwoodite fa30 akimotoite en11fs89 and augite en42wo33fs25 were found in the silicate matrix of the melt vein representing the crystallization from a silicate melt during the shock pulse ringwoodite fa27 and hollandite structured plagioclase were also found as polycrystalline aggregates in the melt vein representing solid state transformation or melting with subsequent crystallization of entrained host rock fragments in the vein in addition fe2sio4 spinel fa66 fa99 and stishovite crystallized from a feo sio2 rich zone in the melt vein which formed by shock melting of feo sio2 rich material that had been altered and metasomatized before shock based on the pressure stabilities of the high pressure minerals ringwoodite akimotoite and ca clinopyroxene the melt vein crystallized at approximately 18 gpa the fe2sio4 spinel stishovite assemblage in the feo sio2 rich melts is consistent with crystallization of the melt vein matrix at the pressure up to 18 gpa the crystallization pressure of 18 gpa is much lower than the 4590 gpa pressure one would conclude from the s6 shock effects in melt veins stffler et al 1991 and somewhat less than the 25 30 gpa inferred from s5 shock effects schmitt 2000 found in the bulk rock

a melt inclusion study of the toba tuffs sumatra indonesia the toba caldera in northern sumatra indonesia is the site of earth s largest quaternary volcanic eruption this eruption dated at 74 ka produced the 2800 km3 youngest toba tuff ytt and ash fall quartz bearing silicic pumices ranging from 68 to 77 wt sio2 indicate that the ytt magma was zoned compositionally and mineralogically prior to the ytt eruption two other silicic quartz bearing tuffs known as the middle toba tuff mtt and the oldest toba tuff ott were erupted from toba at 0 501 ma and 0 840 ma respectively although the volatile contents of the toba magmas are poorly constrained aerosols generated by the ytt eruption are generally thought to have caused a global volcanic winter an evaluation of the pre eruptive dissolved gas contents of the ytt magma is fundamental to understanding the global effects of this eruption we used melt inclusions in quartz crystals to determine the dissolved h2o co2 s cl and f contents of the ytt mtt and ott magmas quartz crystals selected from pumice blocks and welded tuffs that spanned the compositional ranges of the three units were chosen for study major and trace element analyses of melt inclusions were also conducted to characterize melt evolution and provide context to the volatile data melt inclusions from the ytt mtt and ott are rhyolitic in composition 73 77 wt sio2 and have overlapping indistinguishable major element trends inclusions from the large eruptions ytt and ott have similar geochemical relationships where the most evolved melt inclusions occur in the least silicic bulk rock samples and are more evolved than their matrix glasses in contrast the least evolved melt inclusions occur in the most silicic samples and either overlap with or are less evolved than their matrix glasses these patterns can be explained if quartz crystals in the least silicic magmas were inherited from more evolved melt while those in the most silicic melt formed in situ several lines of evidence suggest that crystal settling of early formed quartz crystals in long lived magma bodies was an important process in the ytt and ott magmas trace element data from the ytt melt inclusions have wide ranges rb 250 830 ppm ba 10 485 ppm and mostly support these models however incompatible trace elements are enriched 2 3 over their matrix glass compositions in all samples in the smaller mtt melt inclusions overlapped with the compositional range of the bulk rock samples and are consistent with in situ crystallization ftir analyses indicate that the ytt mtt and ott melts contained about 4 0 5 5 2 0 5 5 and 2 0 5 5 wt h2o respectively co2 contents in all units are generally 100 ppm and cl is 2000 ppm water gradients occur in all 3 tuffs cl gradients are evident only in the ytt and the least silicic samples from all units had no detectable co2 sulfur contents in melt inclusions are low in all samples 32 ppm and overlap with matrix glass s contents applying broad degassing constraints about 1014 g of h2so4 aerosols were likely loaded into the atmosphere during the ytt eruption 2 orders of magnitude less than previous petrologic estimates considerably more cl and f about 1015 g of each may have been part of the ytt aerosol cloud

newly discovered eastern dispersal of the youngest toba tuff volcanic glasses with minor mafic mineral fragments such as biotite and hornblende found in deep sea sediments of the south china sea basin scsb have been clearly identified as eruptive products of the youngest toba tuff ytt northern sumatra indonesia the tephra layer occurs between marine oxygen isotopic event 5 1 79 3 ka and event 4 22 64 1 ka with an interpolated age of 74 0 ka which is in good consistence with previous radiometric dating 73 75 ka and ice core dating 71 5 ka of the ytt the tephra consists predominantly of bubble wall shards with minor elongated vesicles of pumice fragments geochemical characteristics of the tephra such as high total alkali content high 87 sr 86 sr ratio and uniformity of their compositions all suggest that the recovered tephra is of the youngest toba tuff this finding supports an extended dispersal of coarse 63 mm glass shards over 1500 km northeast of the toba caldera a direction opposite to what previously conceived while providing a better documentation of the distribution extent of the toba ash this report points to the need to reestimating the eruptive volume of the ytt and re evaluating its environmental impact q 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the distinct morphological and petrological features of shock melt veins in the suizhou l6 chondrite the morphology and petrology of distinct melt veins in the suizhou l6 chondrite have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy electron microprobe analyses and raman spectroscopy synchrotron energy dispersive diffraction and transmission electron microscopy it is found that the melt veins in the suizhou meteorite morphologically are the simplest straightest and thinnest among all shock veins known from meteorites at first glance these veins look like fine fractures but petrologically they are solid melt veins of chondritic composition and consist of fully crystalline materials of two distinct lithological assemblages with no glassy material remaining the suizhou melt veins contain the most abundant high pressure mineral species when compared with all other veins known in chondrites thus these veins in suizhou are classified as shock veins all rock forming and almost all accessory minerals in the suizhou shock veins have been transformed to their high pressure polymorphs and no fragments of the precursor minerals remain in the veins among the 11 high pressure mineral phases identified in the suizhou veins three are new high pressure minerals namely tuite after whitlockite xieite and the cf phase after chromite on the basis of transformation of plagioclase into maskelynite it is estimated that the suizhou meteorite experienced shock pressures andmore shock temperatures up to 22 gpa and 1000 c respectively shearing and friction along shock veins raised the temperature up to 1900 2000 c and the pressure up to 24 gpa within the veins hence phase transition and crystallization of high pressure minerals took place only in the suizhou shock veins fast cooling of the extremely thin shock veins is regarded as the main reason that up to 11 shock induced high pressure mineral phases could be preserved in these veins less

a physical explanation of the relation between flank uplifts and the breakup unconformity at rifted continental margins rift flank uplifts and the breakup or postrift unconformity are characteristic features of many rifted passive or atlantic type continental margins but are not predicted as primary features of simple lithospheric stretching models the explanations that have been proposed for their origin remain controversial either because they call upon special circumstances or because they are difficult to test plane strain finite element models are used in this paper to explore the dynamics of lithospheric necking during rifting and rupture the results agree with the conceptual interpretation that uplift of the rift boundaries to form flank mountains and uplift of the basin responsible for the breakup unconformity are related consequences of regional isostatic compensation of mass that is redistributed during the necking and rupture phases although the amplitudes of these uplifts depend on the model parameter values the relations between and relative signs of these two effects appear to be fundamental the explanation we propose may have been missed in recent studies because there has been a tendency to concentrate on kinematic stretching models which assume local isostatic equilibrium through out the rifting process such an approach is predicated on the assumption that the lithosphere has an insignificant strength or flexural rigidity during extension which is not true if our explanation is correct

role of melt supply in oceanic detachment faulting and formation of megamullions normal faults are ubiquitous on mid ocean ridges and are expected to develop increasing offset with reduced spreading rate as the proportion of tectonic extension increases numerous long lived detachment faults that form megamullions with large scale corrugations have been identifi ed on magma poor mid ocean ridges but recent studies suggest counterintuitively that they may be associated with elevated magmatism we present numerical models and geological data to show that these detachments occur when 30 50 of total extension is accommodated by magmatic accretion and that there is signifi cant magmatic accretion in the fault footwalls under these low melt conditions magmatism may focus unevenly along the spreading axis to create an irregular brittle plastic transition where detachments root thus explaining the origin of the enigmatic corrugations morphological and compositional characteristics of the oceanic lithosphere suggested by this study provide important new constraints to assess the distribution of magmatic versus tectonic extension along mid ocean ridges

erratum to back transformation of high pressure phases in a shock melt vein of an h chondrite during atmospheric passage implications for the survival of high pressure phases after decompression earth planet sci lett 217 2003 141 150

local and regional scale impacts of the 74 ka toba supervolcanic eruption on hominin populations and habitats in india abstract the toba supervolcanic eruption of 74 000 years ago is argued to have devastated homo sapiens populations causing a human population bottleneck through a combination of rapid global climatic deterioration and ecological disruption following the widespread ash fall this dramatic eruption the largest in at least the last 2 million years is hypothesized to have shaped the genetic structure and diversity of human populations today past assessments of toba s human impacts however have been predominantly theoretical using archaeological and geological evidence from sites in india this study addresses toba s local scale impacts on hominin technology behavior demography and habitats in two valleys in india the jurreru and middle son valleys using paleoclimatological and volcanological data regional scale impacts throughout india are inferred a refugia hypothesis is presented that argues for variation in the scale of toba s impact throughout india driven by regional differences in monsoonal dynamics geography and topography areas of north west india the indo gangetic plain and parts of the deccan to the east of the western ghats are argued to have been the most affected whereas areas of southern and eastern india may have preserved the largest refugia for hominin populations

petrogenesis of complex veins in the chantonnay l6f chondrite abstract two cross cutting veins in the chantonnay l6f chondrite illustrate different patterns of fractionation of total chondritic shock melts the earlier vein which is dark colored and bears abundant host rock xenoliths is strongly reduced and sodium poor relative to the bulk meteorite it resembles and may be cogenetic with melt pockets in chantonnay the later vein which is lighter colored and somewhat vesicular lacks evidence of either na loss or reduction but shows modest internal differentiation its metal and total iron contents 26 5 wt are higher than normal for l group chondrites the trend of chemical fractionation recorded in the earlier chantonnay vein resembles that reported for chondrules in ordinary chondrites suggesting that chemical variations among chondrules in part reflect variations among their parental shock melts

modes of faulting at mid ocean ridges abyssal hill bounding faults that pervade the oceanic crust are the most common tectonic feature on the surface of the earth the recognition that these faults form at plate spreading centres came with the plate tectonic revolution recent observations reveal a large range of fault sizes and orientations numerical models of plate separation dyke intrusion and faulting require at least two distinct mechanisms of fault formation at ridges to explain these observations plate unbending with distance from the top of an axial high reproduces the observed dip directions and offsets of faults formed at fast spreading centres conversely plate stretching with differing amounts of constant rate magmatic dyke intrusion can explain the great variety of fault offset seen at slow spreading ridges very large offset normal faults only form when about half the plate separation at a ridge is accommodated by dyke intrusion

probing the accumulation history of the voluminous toba magma the age and compositional zonation in crystals from the youngest toba tuff record the prelude to earth9s largest quaternary eruption we used allanite crystals to date and decipher this zoning and found that the crystals retain a record of at least 150 000 years of magma storage and evolution the dominant subvolcanic magma was relatively homogeneous and thermally stagnant for 110 000 years in the 35 000 years before eruption the diversity of melts increased substantially as the system grew in size before erupting 75 000 years ago

high pressure phases in a shock induced melt vein of the tenham l6 chondrite constraints on shock pressure and duration abstract the microtexture and mineralogy of a 580 m wide melt vein in the tenham l6 chondrite were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to better understand the shock conditions the melt vein consists of a matrix of silicate plus metal sulfide grains that crystallized from immiscible melts and sub rounded fragments of the host chondrite that have been entrained in the melt and transformed to polycrystalline high pressure silicates the melt vein matrix contains two distinct textures and mineral assemblages corresponding to the vein edge and interior the 30 m wide vein edge consists of vitrified silicate perovskite ringwoodite akimotoite majorite with minor metal sulfide the 520 m wide vein interior consists of majorite magnesiowustite with irregular metal sulfide blebs although these mineral assemblages are distinctly different the pressure stabilities of both assemblages are consistent with crystallization from similar pressure conditions the melt vein edge crystallized at about 23 25 gpa and the vein interior crystallized at about 21 25 gpa this relatively narrow pressure range suggests that the melt vein either crystallized at a constant equilibrium shock pressure of 25 gpa or during a relatively slow pressure release using a finite element heat transfer program to model the thermal history of this melt vein during shock we estimate that the time required to quench this 580 m wide vein was 40 ms because the entire vein contains high pressure minerals that crystallized from the melt the shock pressure duration was at least 40 ms using a synthetic hugoniot for tenham and assuming that the sample experienced a peak shock pressure of 25 gpa near the impact site we estimate that the tenham parent body experienced an impact with collision velocity 2 km s based on a one dimensional planar impact model we estimate that the projectile size was 150 m in thickness

toba supereruption age and impact on east african ecosystems lane et al 1 recovered microscopic glass shards cryptotephra from a thin layer of sediment deposited in lake malawi and chemically characterized them as volcanic ash youngest toba tuff ytt from the toba supereruption in sumatra the authors found no evidence of significant climate change at multidecadal to millennial timescales in the sedimentary record and in their report conclude that the eruption distributed ash much more widely than previously documented but did not trigger a volcanic winter or human bottleneck in east africa although the ytt event had limited impact on ecosystems around lake malawi we think lane et al 1 are premature in extrapolating their environmental findings to all of east africa and we dispute their contention that the most robust age for the ytt is 75 0 0 9 ka

high pressure minerals in shocked meteorites heavily shocked meteorites contain various types of high pressure polymorphs of major minerals olivine pyroxene feldspar and quartz and accessory minerals chromite and ca phosphate these high pressure minerals are micron to submicron sized and occur within and in the vicinity of shock induced melt veins and melt pockets in chondrites and lunar howardite eucrite diogenite hed and martian meteorites their occurrence suggests two types of formation mechanisms 1 solid state high pressure transformation of the host rock minerals into monomineralic polycrystalline aggregates and 2 crystallization of chondritic or monomineralic melts under high pressure based on experimentally determined phase relations their formation pressures are limited to the pressure range up to 25 gpa textural crystallographic and chemical characteristics of high pressure minerals provide clues about the impact events of meteorite parent bodies including their size and mutual collision velocities and about the mineralogy of deep planetary interiors the aim of this article is to review and summarize the findings on natural high pressure minerals in shocked meteorites that have been reported over the past 50 years

structure of the se greenland margin from seismic reflection and refraction data implications for nascent spreading center subsidence and asymmetric crustal accretion during north atlantic opening 1 seismic reflection and refraction data from the se greenland margin provide a detailed view of a volcanic rifted margin from archean continental crust to near to average oceanic crust over a spatial scale of 400 km the sigma iii transect located 600 km south of the greenland iceland ridge and the presumed track of the iceland hot spot shows that the continent ocean transition is abrupt and only a small amount of crustal thinning occurred prior to final breakup initially 18 3 km thick crust accreted to the margin and the productivity decreased through time until a steady state ridge system was established that produced 8 10 km thick crust changes in the morphology of the basaltic extrusives provide evidence for vertical motions of the ridge system which was close to sea level for at least 1 m y of subaerial spreading despite a reduction in productivity from 17 to 13 5 km thick crust over this time interval this could be explained if a small component of active upwelling associated with thermal buoyancy from a modest thermal anomaly provided dynamic support to the rift system the thermal anomaly must be exhaustible consistent with recent suggestions that plume material was emplaced into a preexisting lithospheric thin spot as a thin sheet exhaustion of the thin sheet led to rapid subsidence of the spreading system and a change from subaerial to shallow marine and finally to deep marine extrusion in 2 m y is shown by the morphological changes in addition comparison to the conjugate hatton bank shows a clear asymmetry in the early accretion history of north atlantic oceanic crust nearly double the volume of material was emplaced on the greenland margin compared to hatton bank and may indicate east directed ridge migration during initial opening

major element geochemistry of glass shards and minerals of the youngest toba tephra in the southwestern south china sea an ash layer newly discovered in core md01 2393 from the southwestern south china sea has been studied in order to characterize its major element features the layer 4 0 cm thick light grayish and silt size occurs right at the marine isotope stage 4 5 transition ca 74 kyr ago the morphology and geochemistry of glass shards combined with oxygen isotope and carbonate stratigraphy confirm the youngest toba eruption in northern sumatra as the origin of the ash layer major element data on mineral crystals i e biotite plagioclase and hornblende from the ash layer suggest that biotite is phenocrystic while hornblende and some plagioclase are xenocrystic implying that these xenocrysts were incorporated into the youngest toba magma before the eruption q 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the intav intercomparison of electron beam microanalysis of glass by tephrochronology laboratories results and recommendations abstract the international focus group on tephrochronology and volcanism intav of the international union for quaternary research inqua has conducted an intercomparison of tephrochronology laboratories with electron beam microanalytical data on volcanic glasses submitted from 27 instruments at 24 institutions in 9 countries this assessment includes most active tephrochronology laboratories and represents the largest intercomparison exercise yet conducted by the tephrochronology community the intercomparison was motivated by the desire to assess the quality of data currently being produced and to stimulate improvements in analytical protocols and data reporting that will increase the efficacy of tephra fingerprinting and correlation participating laboratories were each supplied with a mount containing three samples for analysis 1 rhyolitic lipari obsidian id3506 2 phonolitic sheep track tephra from mt edziza british columbia canada and 3 basaltic laki 1783 a d tephra a fourth sample rhyolitic old crow tephra was also distributed most laboratories submitted extensive details of their analytical procedures in addition to their analytical results most used some combination of defocused or rastered beam and modest beam current to reduce alkali element migration approximately two thirds reported that they routinely analyze one or more secondary standards to evaluate data quality and instrument performance despite substantial variety in procedures and calibration standards most mean concentrations compare favorably between laboratories and with other data typically four or fewer data contributions had means for a given element on a given sample that differed by more than 2 standard deviations from the overall means obtaining accurate na 2 o concentrations for the phonolitic tephra proved to be a challenge for many laboratories only one half of the data sets had means within 1 standard deviation of the 8 2 wt na 2 o value obtained by other methods one mean is higher and 14 are lower three of the data set means fall below 7 wt na 2 o most submissions had relative precision better than 1 5 for the major elements for low abundance elements the precision varied substantially with relative standard deviations as small as 10 and as large as 110 because of the strong response to this project the tephrochronology community now has a large comparative data set derived from common reference materials that will facilitate improvements in accuracy and precision and which can enable improved use of published data produced by the participating laboratories finally recommendations are provided for improving accuracy precision and reporting of electron beam microanalytical data from glasses

no short reversals of brunhes age recorded in the toba tuffs north sumatra indonesia paleomagnetic and 40ar 39ar data indicate that two tuffs are present at siguragura north sumatra indonesia a reversely magnetized tuff the earliest eruptive unit of the toba caldera of matuyama age 0 84 ma and a normally magnetized tuff the last eruptive unit of the toba caldera of late brunhes age no reversely magnetized tuffs of late brunhes age are present at this location as suggested by previous investigators

constraints on dike propagation from continuous gps measurements the january 1997 east rift zone eruption on kilauea volcano hawaii occurred within a network of continuous global positioning system gps receivers the gps measurements reveal the temporal history of deformation during dike intrusion beginning 8 hours prior to the onset of the eruption the dike volume as a function of time estimated from the gps data using elastic green s functions for a homogeneous half space shows that only two thirds of the final dike volume accumulated prior to the eruption and the rate of volume change decreased with time these observations are inconsistent with simple models of dike propagation which predict accelerating dike volume up to the time of the eruption and little or no change thereafter deflationary tilt changes at kilauea summit mirror the inferred dike volume history suggesting that the rate of dike propagation is limited by flow of magma into the dike a simple lumped parameter model of a coupled dike magma chamber system shows that the tendency for a dike to end in an eruption rather than intrusion is favored by high initial dike pressures compressional stress states large compressible magma reservoirs and highly conductive conduits linking the dike and source reservoirs comparison of model predictions to the observed dike volume history the ratio of erupted to intruded magma and the deflationary history of the summit magma chamber suggest that most of the magma supplied to the growing dike came from sources near to the eruption through highly conductive conduits interpretation is complicated by the presence of multiple source reservoirs magma vesiculation and cooling as well as spatial variations in dike normal stress reinflation of the summit magma chamber following the eruption was measured by gps and accompanied a rise in the level of the pu u o o lava lake for a spheroidal chamber these data imply a summit magma chamber volume of 20 km3 consistent with recent estimates from seismic tomography continuous deformation measurements can be used to image the spatiotemporal evolution of propagating dikes and to reveal quantitative information about the volcanic plumbing systems

formation of high pressure minerals in shocked l6 chondrite yamato 791384 constraints on shock conditions and parent body size we have studied the high pressure phases observed in yamato 791384 l6 chondrite host meteorite mainly consists of olivine pyroxenes and plagioclase glass mineral fragments observed in the veins and the vein margin region of the host meteorite were partially or totally transformed into high pressure phases ringwoodite majorite akimotoite naalsi3o8 hollandite and jadeite matrix of the shock vein contains majorite pyrope solid solution the spatial distribution indicates that high pressure phases are present in the shock veins and host rocks adjacent to the shock veins investigation of the high pressure phases revealed that in y791384 fragments and adjacent matrix were subjected to pressures around of 18 23 gpa and the vein experienced temperatures around 2300 c during the shock event ringwoodite lamellae were observed in the host olivine adjacent to the vein kinetic investigation for ringwoodite lamellar growth in olivine indicates that the shocked meteorite experienced the pressure for at least 4 s such long duration of the pressure pulse indicates that the size of the parent body was greater than 10 km

thermal and mechanical aspects of magma emplacement in giant dike swarms we consider the thermal history and dynamics of magma emplacement in giant feeder dikes associated with continental flood basalts for driving pressure gradients inferred for giant dike swarms thicknesses of 10 m would enable dikes to transport magma laterally over the distances observed in the field up to thousands of kilometers without suffering thermal lock up using time dependent numerical solutions for the thermal evolution of a dike channel under laminar and turbulent flow conditions in the presence of phase transitions we investigate the possibility that the observed dike thicknesses of the order of 100 m result from thermal erosion of the country rocks during dike emplacement this implies that the observed range of dike widths in giant dike swarms may reflect variations in the source volume and not the excess magma pressure it is found that the total volume of intruded magma required to produce an order of magnitude increase in dike width via wall rock melting broadly agrees with the estimated volumes of individual flows in continental flood basalts the presence of chilled margins and apparently low crustal contamination characteristics of some giant dikes may be consistent with turbulent magma flow and extensive melt back during dike emplacement in this case measurements of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility most likely indicate magma flow directions during the final stages of dike intrusion shear stresses generated at the dike wall when the dike starts to freeze strongly decrease with increasing dike width which implies that thicker dikes may have less tendency to produce consistent fabric alignment our results suggest that if the dike was propagating downslope off a plume related topographic swell the mechanism responsible for flow termination could possibly have been related to underpressurization and collapse implosion of the shallow magma plumbing system feeding the intrusion radial dikes that erupted at the periphery of the topographic uplift might have increased rather than decreased extensional stresses in the crust within the topographic uplift upon their solidification

the 74 ka toba super eruption and southern indian hominins archaeology lithic technology and environments at jwalapuram locality 3 hominins living in southern india 74 000 years ago faced a deteriorating environment as the global climate moved from interglacial into full glacial conditions at the same time south asian populations witnessed the widespread deposition of tephra from the sumatran toba super eruption the largest explosive volcanic event of the past two million years here we report new data on the lithic technology and environmental context for a southern indian site with hominin occupation in association with toba tephra deposits jwalapuram locality 3 in the jurreru valley sedimentological and isotopic studies demonstrate that a cooling trend was in effect in this part of southern india prior to the eruption and that thick deposits of ash in the jurreru valley supported grassland communities before more wooded conditions were re established detailed technological analyses of an expanded lithic sample from locality 3 suggest cultural continuity after the eruptive event and comparisons with lithic core technologies elsewhere indicate that homo sapiens cannot be ruled out as the creator of these middle palaeolithic assemblages

shock metamorphism of ordinary chondrites a revised petrographic classification of progressive stages of shock metamorphism of ordinary chondrites is proposed six stages of shock s1 to s6 are defined based on shock effects in olivine and plagioclase as recognized by thin section microscopy the characteristic shock effects of each shock stage are s1 unshocked sharp optical extinction of olivine s2 very weakly shocked undulatory extinction of olivine s3 weakly shocked planar fractures in olivine s4 moderately shocked mosaicism in olivine s5 strongly shocked isotropization of plagioclase maskelynite and planar deformation features in olivine and s6 very strongly shocked recrystallization of olivine sometimes combined with phase transformations ringwoodite and or phases produced by dissociation reactions s6 effects are always restricted to regions adjacent to melted portions of a sample which is otherwise only strongly shocked in stages s3 to s6 localized melting results from stress and temperature peaks which locally deviate from the equilibration shock pressure due to differences in shock impedance these melting effects are a opaque melt veins shock veins b melt pockets with interconnecting melt veins c melt dikes and d troilite metal deposits in fractures based on a critical evaluation of data from shock recovery experiments a shock pressure calibration for the six shock stages is proposed which defines the s1 s2 s2 s3 s3 s4 s4 s5 and s5 s6 transitions at 5 5 10 15 20 30 35 and 45 55 gpa respectively whole rock melting and formation of impact melt rocks or melt breccias occurs at about 75 90 gpa the symbol for the shock stage may be used in combination with the symbol for the petrologic type to abbreviate the complete classification of a chondrite e g h5 s3 we propose this new shock classification and pressure calibration system to replace previous systems which are out of date with respect to the pressure calibration nominally restricted to l chondrites and based on incomplete and in part illdefined sets of shock effects we have classified seventy six ordinary chondrites using the new classification system and conclude the following 1 1 shock effects and the sequence of progressively increasing degrees of shock metamorphism are very similar in h l and ll groups differences in the frequency distribution of shock stages are relatively minor e g l chondrites appear to have the largest fraction with stages s5 and s6 this suggests that the collisional histories of the h l and ll parent bodies were similar 2 2 petrologic type 3 chondrites are deficient in stages s4 to s6 and with increasing petrologic type the frequency of stages s4 to s6 increases we suggest that the more porous and volatile rich type 3 chondrites are subject to melting at a lower shock pressure than the nonporous chondrites of higher petrologic type volatiles trapped in pores cause shock induced dispersal of the shocked and melted material into small particles which are not expected to survive as meteorites 3 3 stage s3 is the most abundant in nearly all petrologic types 4 4 at shock pressures in excess of about 35 gpa s5 and s6 4he and 40ar are almost completely lost pressures below 10 gpa s1 and s2 do not cause noble gas losses

factors controlling normal fault offset in an ideal brittle layer we study the physical processes controlling the development and evolution of normal faults by analyzing numerical experiments of extension of an ideal two dimensional elastic plastic brittle layer floating on an inviscid fluid the yield stress of the layer is the sum of the layer cohesion and its frictional stress faults are initiated by a small plastic flaw in the layer we get finite fault offset when we make fault cohesion decrease with strain even in this highly idealized system we vary six physical parameters the initial cohesion of the layer the thickness of the layer the rate of cohesion reduction with plastic strain the friction coefficient the flaw size and the fault width we obtain two main types of faulting behavior 1 multiple major faults with small offset and 2 single major fault that can develop very large offset we show that only two parameters control these different types of faulting patterns 1 the brittle layer thickness for a given cohesion and 2 the rate of cohesion reduction with strain for a large brittle layer thickness 22 km with 44 mpa of cohesion extension always leads to multiple faults distributed over the width of the layer for a smaller brittle layer thickness the fault pattern is dependent on the rate of fault weakening a very slow rate of weakening leads to a very large offset fault and a fast rate of weakening leads to an asymmetric graben and eventually to a very large offset fault when the offset is very large the model produces major features of the pattern of topography and faulting seen in some metamorphic core complexes

all toba tephra occurrences across peninsular india belong to the 75 000 yr b p eruption abstract a controversy currently exists regarding the number of toba eruptive events represented in the tephra occurrences across peninsular india some claim the presence of a single bed the 75 000 yr old toba tephra others argue that dating and archaeological evidence suggest the presence of earlier toba tephra resolution of this issue was sought through detailed geochemical analyses of a comprehensive suite of samples allowing comparison of the indian samples to those from the toba caldera in northern sumatra malaysia and importantly the sedimentary core at odp site 758 in the indian ocean a core that contains several of the earlier toba tephra beds in addition two samples of toba tephra from western india were dated by the fission track method the results unequivocally demonstrate that all the presently known toba tephra occurrences in peninsular india belong to the 75 000 yr b p toba eruption hence this tephra bed can be used as an effective tool in the correlation and dating of late quaternary sedimentary sequences across india and it can no longer be used in support of a middle pleistocene age for associated acheulian artifacts

continental breakup and uhp rock exhumation in action gps results from the woodlark rift papua new guinea we show results from a network of campaign global positioning system gps sites in the woodlark rift southeastern papua new guinea in a transition from seafloor spreading to continental rifting gps velocities indicate anticlockwise rotation at 2 2 7 myr relative to australia of crustal blocks north of the rift producing 10 15 mm yr of extension in the continental rift increasing to 20 40 mm yr of seafloor spreading at the woodlark spreading center extension in the continental rift is distributed among multiple structures these data demonstrate that low angle normal faults in the continents such as the mai iu fault can slip at high rates nearing 10 mm yr extensional deformation observed in the d entrecasteaux islands the site of the world s only actively exhuming ultra high pressure uhp rock terrane supports the idea that extensional processes play a critical role in uhp rock exhumation gps data do not require significant interseismic coupling on faults in the region suggesting that much of the deformation may be aseismic westward transfer of deformation from the woodlark spreading center to the main plate boundary fault in the continental rift the mai iu fault is accommodated by clockwise rotation of a tectonic block beneath goodenough bay and by dextral strike slip on transfer faults within and surrounding normanby island contemporary extension rates in the woodlark spreading center are 30 50 slower than those from seafloor spreading derived magnetic anomalies the 0 5 ma to present seafloor spreading estimates for the woodlark basin may be overestimated and a reevaluation of these data in the context of the gps rates is warranted

volcanic winter and accelerated glaciation following the toba super eruption the eruption of toba in sumatra 73 500 years ago was the largest known explosive volcanic event in the late quaternary1 it could have lofted about 1015 g each of fine ash and sulphur gases to heights of 27 37 km creating dense stratospheric dust and aerosol clouds here we present model calculations that investigate the possible climatic effects of the volcanic cloud the increase in atmospheric opacity might have produced a volcanic winter 2 a brief pronounced regional and perhaps hemispheric cooling caused by the volcanic dust followed by a few years with maximum estimated annual hemispheric surface temperature decreases of 3 5 c the eruption occurred during the stage 5a 4 transition of the oxygen isotope record a time of rapid ice growth and falling sea level3 we suggest that the toba eruption may have greatly accelerated the shift to glacial conditions that was already underway by inducing perennial snow cover and increased sea ice extent at sensitive northern latitudes as the onset of climate change may have helped to trigger the eruption itself4 we propose that the toba event may exemplify a more general climate volcano feedback mechanism

uncovering a landscape buried by the super eruption of toba 74 000 years ago a multi proxy environmental reconstruction of landscape heterogeneity in the jurreru valley south india abstract the youngest toba tuff ytt eruption 74 ka is the largest volcanic event to occur during the last two million years this paper presents a high resolution landscape reconstruction for the jurreru valley south india immediately prior to this eruption primary ash fall deposits have sealed the pre toba surface of the jurreru valley and subsequent deposition of remobilised ash has helped preserve this horizon these primary ytt deposits provide an isochron that allows for the study of palaeoenvironmental conditions across a 25 000 m2 area in the jurreru valley permitting the reconstruction of the pre toba landscape sixty sites with exposed primary ash deposits have been recorded as part of a total station survey twelve of which have been subject to detailed stratigraphical study this has enabled a reconstruction of the topography of the buried surface in the jurreru valley stable isotope and phytolith analyses are used to explore diversity across this buried landscape indicating that the ratio of c3 to c4 plants varies with regard to changes in topographic height in the landscape of up to 5 m high levels of spatial heterogeneity within these proxy data are indicated by this study highlighting the risks of extrapolating regional palaeoenvironmental sequences from vertically sampled sedimentary sections which may well reflect highly localised influences of topography and geomorphology

widening of the krafla fissure swarm during the 1975 1981 volcano tectonic episode frequent distance measurements across the krafla fissure swarm north iceland recorded the extension accompanying the sequence of rifting events which started in december 1975 and lasted for 6 years an 80 to 90 km long section of the fissure swarm extended during this sequence of rifting and volcanic events maximum widening of about 8 m occurred 10 to 12 km north of leirhnjukur which is located above the center of the krafla magma reservoir from that location the amount of widening decreased north wards and is estimated to exceed 2 m where the seismicity indicated the northern termination of the present rifting off the north coast about 70 km north of leirhnjukur the amount of widening also decreased southwards and approached zero at 15 to 20 km south of leirhnjukur the ground deformation associated with these rifting events can be summarised as a narrow strip 1 to 2 km wide along the fissure swarm is heavily fractured with numerous open cracks parallel to the fissure swarm this fractured strip has subsided 2 to 3 m relative to its flanks the flanks of the fractured zone have been uplifted relative to regions farther away the uplift is not well constrained but tilt observations at several locations indicate about 1 m uplift the flanks of the rift zone have contracted perpendicular to the fissure swarm the maximum contractional strain exceeds 300 mm per km the amount of areal expansion windening of the fissure swarm times the length of the fractured zone associated with these rifting events is estimated to be about 0 30 km2 for individual events the area of expansion has been roungly proportional to the volume of subsidence above the krafla magma reservoir if the width of a new dike is equal widening of surface fissures the ratio of the subsidence volume to the area of expansion for the best observed events indicated a height of a new dike system as 2 4 to 2 8 km this ratio is significantly less for events of large lava production but even during these events the majority of magma leaving the krafla reservoir was apparently emplaced in subsurface fissures

the pressures and temperatures of meteorite impact evidence from micro raman mapping of mineral phases in the strongly shocked taiban ordinary chondrite taiban is a heavily shocked l6 chondrite showing opaque melt veins raman spectroscopy was used to characterize the high pressure silicate assemblages in a thin section crossed by a shock created 4 mm wide melt vein raman spectra using different excitation wavelengths allowed identification of mineral phases such as olivine wadsleyite ringwoodite high ca clinopyroxene majorite pyrope jadeite maskelynite and lingunite olivine is fe depleted in contact with the ringwoodite which suggests chemical fractionation during a solid state olivine ringwoodite transformation raman imaging revealed a close correlation between the blue ringwoodite color and the peak observed at 877 cm 1 this signal shows strong near resonance raman enhancement when measured with near ir excitation lines 785 and 830 nm close to the optical absorption bands of the ringwoodite we propose that the blue color of the ringwoodite is due to a small amount of iron in fourfold coordination inside the spinel structure and that yields the observed spectral features in differently colored ringwoodite under the formation conditions of the studied silicate pocket all enstatite transformed to a majorite pyrope solid solution whereas the high ca clinopyroxene likely remained unchanged maskelynite grains in the margins of the pocket often contain lingunite or are totally transformed to jadeite based on static high pressure results the mineral assemblages in the pocket suggest peak pressure in the 17 20 gpa range with maximum temperature t max in the range 1850 1900 k as the formation conditions for this taiban chondrite during shock

ash from the toba supereruption in lake malawi shows no volcanic winter in east africa at 75 ka the most explosive volcanic event of the quaternary was the eruption of mt toba sumatra 75 000 y ago which produced voluminous ash deposits found across much of the indian ocean indian peninsula and south china sea a major climatic downturn observed within the greenland ice cores has been attributed to the cooling effects of the ash and aerosols ejected during the eruption of the youngest toba tuff ytt these events coincided roughly with a hypothesized human genetic bottleneck when the number of our species in africa may have been reduced to near extinction some have speculated that the demise of early modern humans at that time was due in part to a dramatic climate shift triggered by the supereruption others have argued that environmental conditions would not have been so severe to have such an impact on our ancestors and furthermore that modern humans may have already expanded beyond africa by this time we report an observation of the ytt in africa recovered as a cryptotephra layer in lake malawi sediments 7 000 km west of the source volcano the ytt isochron provides an accurate and precise age estimate for the lake malawi paleoclimate record which revises the chronology of past climatic events in east africa the ytt in lake malawi is not accompanied by a major change in sediment composition or evidence for substantial temperature change implying that the eruption did not significantly impact the climate of east africa and was not the cause of a human genetic bottleneck at that time

why meter wide dikes at oceanic spreading centers abstract numerical models show that maximum dike width at oceanic spreading centers should scale with axial lithospheric thickness if the pre diking horizontal stress is close to the andersonian normal faulting stress and the stress is fully released in one dike intrusion dikes at slow spreading ridges could be over 5 m wide and maximum dike width should decrease with increasing plate spreading rate however data from ophiolites and tectonic windows into recently active spreading ridges show that mean dike width ranges from 0 5 m to 1 5 m and does not clearly correlate with plate spreading rate dike width is reduced if either the pre diking horizontal stress difference is lower than the faulting stress or the stress is not fully released by a dike partial stress release during a dike intrusion is the more plausible explanation and is also consistent with the fact that dikes intrude in episodes at iceland and afar partial stress release can result from limited magma supply when a crustal magma chamber acts as a closed source during dike intrusions limited magma supply sets the upper limit on the width of dikes and multiple dike intrusions in an episode may be required to fully release the axial lithospheric tectonic stress the observation of dikes that are wider than a few meters such as the recent event in afar indicates that large tectonic stress and large magma supply sometimes exist

back transformation of high pressure minerals in shocked chondrites low pressure mineral evidence for strong shock post shock annealing of meteorites can destroy their shock induced features particularly high pressure minerals and complicate the estimation of impact pressure temperature conditions however distinguishing post shock annealing features from thermal metamorphism effects can be practically difficult here we report results from mbale a highly shocked l chondrite to investigate the mechanisms kinetics and identification criteria for post shock annealing of high pressure signatures olivine fragments within shock melt veins in mbale occur as chemically heterogeneous nanocrystalline aggregates that contain trace wadsleyite and ringwoodite their strong variation in fayalite content provides evidence of iron partitioning during transformation of olivine to wadsleyite followed by back transformation to olivine after decompression experimental studies of transformation kinetics show that wadsleyite transforms to olivine in seconds at temperatures above 1200 k and in hours at temperatures between 900 and 1200 k thermal models of shock melt cooling show that shock veins in mbale cooled to 1200 k in 1 s the shock pulse must have been shorter than 1 s to provide the high temperature conditions for post shock back transformation of wadsleyite many highly shocked l chondrites which have abundant high pressure minerals must have experienced relatively long shock durations combined with rapid cooling of shock melt regions to preserve high pressure phases the most highly shocked samples such as impact melt breccias lack high pressure phases because of post shock back transformations

estimating shock pressures based on high pressure minerals in shock induced melt veins of l chondrites here we report the transmission electron microscopy tem observations of the mineral assemblages and textures in shock induced melt veins from seven l chondrites of shock stages ranging from s3 to s6 the mineral assemblages combined with phase equilibrium data are used to constrain the crystallization pressures which can be used to constrain shock pressure in some cases thick melt veins in the tenhaml6 chondrite contain majorite and magnesiowstite in the center and ringwoodite akimotoite vitrified silicate perovskite and majorite in the edge of the vein indicating crystallization pressure of 25 gpa however very thin melt veins 5 30 m wide in tenham contain glass olivine clinopyroxene and ringwoodite suggesting crystallization during transient low pressure excursions as the shock pressure equilibrated to a continuum level melt veins of umbarger include ringwoodite akimotoite and clinopyroxene in the vein matrix and fe2sio4 spinel and stishovite in sio2 feo rich melt indicating a crystallization pressure of 18 gpa the silicate melt veins in roy contain majorite plus ringwoodite indicating pressure of 20 gpa melt veins of ramsdorf and nakhon pathon contain olivine and clinoenstatite indicating pressure of less than 15 gpa melt veins of kunashak and la lande include albite and olivine indicating crystallization at less than 2 5 gpa based upon the assemblages observed crystallization of shock veins can occur before during or after pressure release when the assemblage consists of high pressure minerals and that assemblage is constant across a larger melt vein or pocket the crystallization pressure represents the equilibrium shock pressure

three dimensional seismic imaging of a protoridge axis in the main ethiopian rift models of continental breakup remain uncertain because of a lack of knowledge of strain accommodation immediately before breakup our new three dimensional seismic velocity model from the main ethiopian rift clearly images mid crustal intrusions in this active transitional rift setting supporting breakup models based on dike intrusion and magma supply the most striking features of our velocity model are anomalously fast elongate bodies velocity v p 6 5 6 8 km s extending along the rift axis interpreted as cooled mafic intrusions these 20 km wide and 50 km long bodies are separated and laterally offset from one another in a right stepping en echelon pattern approximately mimicking surface segmentation of quaternary volcanic centers our crustal velocity model combined with results from geologic studies indicates that below a depth of 7 km extension is controlled by magmatic intrusion in a ductile middle to lower crust whereas normal faulting and dike intrusion in a narrow zone in the center of the rift valley control extension in the brittle upper crust this zone is inferred to be the protoridge axis for future seafloor spreading

new geochemical evidence for the youngest toba tuff in india abstract new geochemical data on tephra samples from a layer present at several archeological sites in india support correlation of this layer to the youngest toba tuff erupted from northern sumatra about 74 000 yr ago the data show that the indian tephra layer is not a correlative of older tephra erupted from toba as has been suggested on the basis of artifact assemblages previously published geochemical data on the indian tephra beds was based on bulk ash samples containing mineral and clay contaminants and the resulting variability in analyses did not allow identification or discrimination of individual eruptive events our new data were collected on individual glass shards and small purified glass separates which have greater resolving power in fingerprinting acheulian and paleolithic artifacts found at some of the indian tephra sites do not reflect the antiquity of the tephra bed as they occur in fluvial sediments and may be reworked

rheology of the lithosphere selected topics we review recent results concerning the rheology of the lithosphere with special attention to the following topics 1 the flexure of the oceanic lithosphere 2 deformation of the continental lithosphere resulting from vertical surface loads and forces applied at plate margins 3 the rheological stratification of the continents 4 strain localization and shear zone development and 5 strain induced crystallographic preferred orientations and anisotropies in body wave velocities we conclude with a section citing the 1983 1986 rock mechanics literature by category

melt generation at volcanic continental margins no need for a mantle plume melt generation in a rifting environment is studied using a dynamic 2 d finite element model the lithosphere is extended to large realistic thinning factors assuming a mantle temperature of 1333 c the focussing of deformation results in a distribution of thinning factors along the margin at breakup time consistent with observations the timing of melt production late synrift and the amounts of melt are consistent with observations at volcanic margins the dynamical processes related to lithospheric rifting enhance the produced melt volumes sufficiently to explain the sometimes enigmatic melt volumes found at volcanic margins

the role of tephra covers on soil moisture conservation at haleakala s crater maui hawai i abstract the influence of tephra covers on soil water was studied in haleakala maui hawai i during two summers eight sites with tephra layers and silverswords argyroxiphium sandwicense dc were sampled at 2415 2755 m at each site eight paired sample sets were obtained in bare soils and under adjacent tephra at three depths tephra were sharply separated from underlying soils and showed prominent vertical stratification tephra clast size distribution was assessed by photosieving and on interstitial gravel samples stones included 45 6 cobbles 29 4 pebbles and 25 blocks moisture content increased with depth in both positions but soils below tephra had more water at all depths than exposed areas surface soils beneath tephra contained 83 more water than bare ground soils at 5 10 cm had 106 greater moisture under rocks but only 70 at 10 15 cm differences between plots were statistically significant p all soils were coarse with 20 gravel and 94 sand most fine material 0 063 mm was silt as clay content was negligible organic matter percentage was low 1 65 bulk density and porosity were associated with moisture variation both in tephra insulated and bare soils 80 of field moisture was statistically p

diverse late stage crystallization and storage conditions in melt domains from the youngest toba tuff revealed by age and compositional heterogeneity in the last increment of accessory phase growth the chemical record contained within the final increment of growth on crystals is utilized to reveal the dynamics and timescales of magma assembly and storage before eruption of the cataclysmic 2800 km3 youngest toba tuff ytt indonesia in situ u th disequilibrium dates and trace element concentrations were obtained via secondary ionization mass spectrometry sims on unsectioned and unpolished faces of individual zircon and allanite crystals the six high silica 73 wt sio2 pumices from which crystals were derived are among the more evolved and lower crystallinity 25 wt pumices from the ytt eruption and likely represent the melt dominated portion of the magma system discrete sims measurement cycles were coupled with statistical treatments to detect zircon and allanite surface zoning domains at the 1 m scale coupled r melts and accessory phase saturation modeling indicates that at the granite ternary minimum or eutectoid conditions that define this portion of the ytt zircon and allanite crystallization is dependent on and proportionate to major phase crystallization and is more limited than at pre eutectoid conditions a lower proportion of near eruption zircon surface ages in the comparatively cool and wet ytt relative to other hotter and drier voluminous silicic eruptions could reflect the influence of eutectoid storage conditions on magmatic responses to remobilization related magmatic recharge

ytt ash from quaternary sediments of kapileshwar area purna alluvial basin central india abstract a thick pocket of volcanic ash 2 5 m represented by various shades of gray powdery massive to laminated in nature hosted in yellowish brown thinly bedded laminated silty clay lithocolumn has been studied for its preservational and geochemical aspects the ash column shows preservations of both primary and reworked ashes which are distinguishable on the basis of their field criteria including colors bedding geometries and thicknesses petrological study of the same reveals high representation of glass shards with bubble wall blocky and pumice morphologies minor occurrences of light and heavy minerals and unidentifiable admixture of fine grained sediments geochemistry of both bulk ash and glass shards through icp aes and epma respectively suggest high percentages of sio2 al2o3 na2o and k2o ree data generated through icp ms show strong negative eu anomaly the effects of weathering or aqueous solution on the geochemistry are also noticeable as evident by the variations in the values of both mobile and immobile elements however the data obtained from both bulk ash and glass shards are within the limits of ytt composition calm to very low energy environment of deposition is suggested for their deposition paleoclimatic proxies represented by rhizoliths rhizospheres rhizolith balls ant traces and vertebrate remains preserved in the pre tephra succession have also been commented

fitful and protracted magma assembly leading to a giant eruption youngest toba tuff indonesia the paroxysmal eruption of the 74 ka youngest toba tuff ytt of northern sumatra produced an extraordinary 2800 km3 of nonwelded to densely welded ignimbrite and coignimbrite ashfall we report insights into the duration of ytt magma assembly obtained from ion microprobe u th and u pb dates including continuous age spectra over 50 of final zircon growth for pumices and a welded tuff spanning the compositional range of the ytt a relatively large subpopulation of zircon crystals nucleated before the penultimate caldera related eruption at 501 ka but most zircons yielded interior dates 100 300 ka thereafter zircon nucleation and growth was likely episodic and from diverse conditions over protracted time intervals of 100 to 500 ka final zircon growth is evident as thin rim plateaus that are in th u chemical equilibrium with hosts and that give crystallization ages within tens of ka of eruption the longevity and chemical characteristics of the ytt zircons as well as evidence for intermittent zircon isolation and remobilization associated with magma recharge is especially favored at the cool and wet eutectoid conditions that characterize at least half of the ytt wherein heat fluxes could dissolve major phases but have only a minor effect on larger zircon crystals repeated magma recharge may have contributed to the development of compositional zoning in the ytt but considered together with limited allanite quartz and other mineral dating and geospeedometry regular perturbations to the magma reservoir over 400 ka did not lead to eruption until 74 ka ago

first toba supereruption revival little has been known about the earliest toba eruptive episodes that created the largest known caldera complex of quaternary age here we report evidence for the eastward dispersal of the oldest toba tuff in south china sea sediments to 2500 km away from the source the tephra deposits occur below the brunhes matuyama geomagnetic boundary 778 ka and slightly above the australasian microtektite layer 793 ka calibrated by astronomically tuned oxygen isotope stratigraphy the middle pleistocene toba eruption occurred during the deglaciation at 788 2 2 ka according to the tephra occurrence between marine isotope stages 20 and 19 this refined age is in good agreement with the 4 0 ar 3 9 ar date of 800 20 ka for the toba tephra layer d from ocean drilling program odp site 758 but significantly younger than the commonly cited ar ar age of 840 30 ka the eruption expelled at least 800 1000 km 3 dense rock equivalent of rhyolitic magma on the basis of the widespread tephra fall deposit in the basins of the indian ocean and the south china sea in spite of its exceptional magnitude the timing of this major eruption does not indicate a causal linkage between this event and a long term global climatic deterioration

new occurrence of youngest toba tuff in abyssal sediments of the central indian basin abstract volcanic glass and pumice found in siliceous abyssal sediments of the central indian basin south of the equator have previously been assigned various origins including intra basin volcanism indonesian arc and krakatau rhyolitic glass shards dispersed in sediments from 8 cores that we have examined are compositionally identical to those of fallout deposits of the youngest toba tuff erupted at 74 ka from northern sumatra the correlation extends the distribution of coarse 63 m glass shards some 1500 km south of the previously known fallout zone and into the southern hemisphere reaching latitudes of ca 14 s this provides evidence for bi hemispheric dispersal of the ash cloud and supports global dispersal of gas and aerosols from the eruption such dispersal could have facilitated the global impact of the eruption

high pressure phases in shock induced melt of the unique highly shocked ll6 chondrite northwest africa 757 northwest africa 757 is unique in the ll chondrite group because of its abundant shock induced melt and high pressure minerals olivine fragments entrained in the melt transform partially and completely into ringwoodite plagioclase and ca phosphate transform to maskelynite lingunite and tuite two distinct shock melt crystallization assemblages were studied by fib tem analysis the first melt assemblage which includes majoritic garnet ringwoodite plus magnetite magnesiowustite crystallized at pressures of 20 25 gpa the other melt assemblage which consists of clinopyroxene and wadsleyite solidified at 15 gpa suggesting a second veining event under lower pressure conditions these shock features are similar to those in s6 l chondrites and indicate that nwa 757 experienced an intense impact event comparable to the impact event that disrupted the l chondrite parent body at 470 ma

impact melt products of chondritic material a large variety of objects in chondritic meteorites formed as a result of impact melting shock veins metal troilite mixtures metal and sulfide nodules melt pockets vugs agglutinates glassy and crystalline spherules and numerous types of melt rock clasts the type of object produced in an impact event is related to the interaction of the shock waves with the particular target rock impact melting has also affected large portions of several chondrite breccias many of these contain vugs and patches of silicate glass some workers have suggested that various iron meteorites including groups iab iiicd and iie as well as several ungrouped irons were formed from individual impact melt pools in chondritic regoliths the eagle station trio pallasites and several ungrouped meteorites bencubbin weatherford enon acapulco and allan hills a77081 may have formed from impact melted chondritic material it is also possible that the parent magmas of ureilites were derived from impact melted metal rich carbonaceous chondrite material

geochemical fingerprinting of the widespread toba tephra using biotite compositions toba caldera sumatra is one of the largest and most explosive volcanoes on earth erupting some of the most voluminous volcanic deposits chronologically these eruptions are 790 ka older toba tuff 500 ka middle toba tuff and 74 ka younger toba tuff ash from these eruptions is dispersed over the entire region from india through malaysia to indonesia where it forms isochronous markers that have been documented in a variety of sedimentary sequences including palaeoclimate archives and archaeological sites the chemistry of the volcanic glass shards usually enables distal volcanic ash units to be correlated to a known eruption however the magmas involved in the three largest toba eruptions are compositionally similar and consequently the glass chemistry that is used to differentiate eruption units cannot be used to identify distal deposits here we show that the composition of biotite crystals which occur with glass in the distal deposits can be used to fingerprint the deposits of the younger toba tuff biotite in younger toba tuff has a lower feo mgo 2 1 2 6 than in the products of older eruptions 2 8 3 7 correlations using these distinct biotite compositions indicate that the ash found in malaysia and in archaeological sites in india was from the 74 ka younger toba tuff eruption

minerals formed and mineral formation from volcanic ash by weathering abstract weathering of volcanic ash and pumice is unique regarding minerals formed and mineral formation these minerals include allophane imogolite opaline silica and some halloysites and have distinctive structures and properties studies on the surface and subsurface weathering of various volcanic ashes in different settings are reviewed this review illustrates that relatively rapid weathering of finely comminuted volcanic ash well reflects the effects of climate vegetation and time and produces various combinations of weathering products the moisture regime the nature and amount of organic matter incorporated the deposition of volcanic ash as overburden and the chemical and mineralogical composition of parent ash are important in controlling the mineral formation in weathered volcanic ash

back transformation of high pressure phases in a shock melt vein of an h chondrite during atmospheric passage implications for the survival of high pressure phases after decompression abstract we investigated the h6 chondrite yamato 75267 in which a fusion crust cuts a shock melt vein the shock vein region more than 280 m from the fusion crust contains high pressure phases such as ringwoodite majorite pyrope ss garnet and naalsi 3 o 8 hollandite however the shock vein close to the fusion crust entirely consists of the low pressure polymorphs olivine low ca pyroxene and plagioclase glass the boundary between low and high pressure phase regions is parallel to the fusion crust during the atmospheric passage the peripheral part of the chondrite was melted to form the fusion crust our microscopic laser micro raman electron microprobe investigations and calculations indicate an area up to 300 m from the fusion crust experienced a temperature of 1400 c after 3 s during the melting of the peripheral part the high pressure phases would at this conditions quickly transform back to their low pressure polymorphs the result obtained here indicates that post shock temperatures in the interior part of the veins were much lower than 1400 c thus leading to the survival of high pressure phases in heavily shocked chondrites

ridge push and associated plate interior stress in normal and hot spot regions abstract the stress distribution and plate boundary force produced by ridge push are modelled by elastic viscoelastic finite element analysis in oceanic lithosphere and in an adjacent continent separated by a passive margin models are presented for both a normal slow spreading ridge and for one underlain by an anomalously low density upper mantle associated with a hot spot which gives rise to 1 km extra elevation of the sea floor the weak zone at the ridge crest is simulated by the viscoelastic elements extending up to the surface beneath the immediate crest using a standard thermal and rheological model of the oceanic lithosphere a normal ridge gives rise to horizontal deviatoric compression of about 40 mpa in the 25 30 km elastic layer beneath older ocean floor a much smaller modelled compression of 9 mpa occurs in the 20 km thick elastic layer of the adjacent upper continental crust as a result of the superimposed tension produced by the thick low density continental crust in reality this compression may be up to 30 mpa higher if the sub continental mantle is denser than that beneath old ocean floor as the geoid anomalies possibly suggest a fourfold increase in spreading rate has an insignificant effect on the stresses much larger compressions develop adjacent to the modelled hot spot ridge in normal oceanic and especially continental lithosphere these reaching 100 mpa beneath the old ocean floor and 90 mpa in the adjacent continent the stresses determined by the modelling are comparable in magnitude but generally slightly lower than values estimated using the density moment function the ridge push force referenced to 90 ma old oceanic lithosphere is estimated to be 2 5 1012 n m for the modelled normal ridge and 6 2 1012 for the modelled hot spot ridge the modelling shows that the ridge push is produced by the high pressure and shear drag exerted by the asthenosphere on the lithosphere the high pressure effect predominates at normal ridges where the plates are forced apart by gravitational wedging the shear drag effect contributes substantially at hot spot ridges the modelling helps to explain the prominent compressional stress in the continents bordering the north atlantic in terms of the hot spot activity beneath the mid atlantic ridge

formation of volcanic rifted margins are temperature anomalies required 1 a major controversy for understanding volcanic margin formation is whether a thermal anomaly in the mantle is required to generate the characteristic thick igneous crust we use a fluid dynamical model of mantle flow that includes feedback from melting on the physical properties of the mantle to study the temporal evolution of volcanic margins during continental breakup we test how weak the mantle must be to induce small scale convection and thus enhance melt production during breakup we find that the mantle reference viscosity required to generate a breakup instability is sufficiently low that an unrealistic time dependence develops in the subsequent oceanic spreading system the viscosity increase associated with dehydration melting can stabilize the system but only at the expense of eliminating the breakup instability an exhaustible reservoir of hot mantle resolves this inconsistency melt productivity increases through a deepening of the mantle solidus while a concurrent increase in buoyancy and a decrease in viscosity in the melting region promote an initial transient phase of small scale convection

two distinct assemblages of high pressure liquidus phases in shock veins of the sixiangkou meteorite shock produced complex veins including earlier and later veins are identified in the sixiangkou l6 chondrite the early vein is intersected by the late vein and consists of coarse grained aggregates of ringwoodite majorite and lingunite and fragments of olivine pyroxene plagioclase metal and troilite as well as a fine grained matrix of garnet ringwoodite metal and troilite the late vein mainly consists of a fine grained matrix of garnet magnesiowustite metal and troilite as well as a small amount of coarse grained aggregates the amount of fine grained matrix suggests that the late vein was nearly completely melted whereas the early vein underwent partial melting both fine grained assemblages of garnet plus ringwoodite in the early vein and garnet plus magnesiowustite in the late vein are liquidus phases crystallized from shock induced melt based on our understanding of the liquidus assemblages the late vein experienced a higher pressure and temperature than the early vein

how much magma is required to rift a continent article i nfo article history many continental rifts are associated with and preceded by the formation of large igneous provinces partial melting of a large region of anomalously hot upwelling mantle isrequired to explain these huge volumes of pre and syn rift basaltic magma the uplift associated with a shallow region of hot mantle is often invoked as a cause of the rift push force that may drive the observed extension the rift push force is likely to be an order of magnitude toosmall todrive tectonicstretching of normal continentallithosphere but may besufficient to drive opening of lithosphere cutting dikes intrusion of a sequence of such dikes along a narrow zone may provide enough heat to significantly weaken the lithosphere here we use a newly developed 2d numerical approach in which magma filled dikes open in continental lithosphere in response to an evolving model stress field and the advection and diffusion of heat is tracked to investigate the relation between the volume of magma and the amount of lithospheric weakening the available rifting force lithospheric structure and parameters controlling magma flux are varied in the numerical simulations for continental lithosphere 60 km thick hl h1200 c heat diffusion is unimportant and only a small amount of magma is required 10 20 m y similar to magmatic rifts like the red sea

the toba volcanic event and interstadial stadial climates at the marine isotopic stage 5 to 4 transition in the northern indian ocean abstract the toba volcanic event one of the largest eruptions during the quaternary is documented in marine sediment cores from the northeastern arabian sea on the crest of the murray ridge and along the western indian continental margin we detected distinct concentration spikes and ash layers of rhyolithic volcanic shards near the marine isotope stage 5 4 boundary with the chemical composition of the youngest toba tuff time series of the uk 37 alkenone index planktic foraminiferal species magnetic susceptibility and sediment accumulation rates from this interval show that the toba event occurred between two warm periods lasting a few millennia using toba as an instantaneous stratigraphic marker for correlation between the marine and ice core chronostratigraphies these two arabian sea climatic events correspond to greenland interstadials 20 and 19 respectively our data sets thus depict substantial interstadial stadial fluctuations in sea surface temperature and surface water productivity we show that variable terrigenous eolian sediment supply played a crucial role in transferring and preserving the productivity signal in the sediment record within the provided stratigraphic resolution of several decades to centennials none of these proxies shows a particular impact of the toba eruption however our results are additional support that toba despite its exceptional magnitude had only a minor impact on the evolution of low latitude monsoonal climate on centennial to millennial time scales

toba ash layers in the south china sea evidence of contrasting wind directions during eruption ca 74 ka two cores from the southern south china sea contain discrete ash layers that mainly consist of rhyolithic glass shards on the basis of the specmap time scale the ash layers were dated to ca 74 ka the age of the youngest toba eruption in northern sumatra this link is supported by the chemical composition of the glass which is distinct from volcanic glass supplied from the philippines and the northern south china sea but is almost identical with the chemistry of the toba ash the youngest toba ash layers in the south china sea expand the previously known ash fall zone over more than 1800 km to the east the dispersal of ashes from sumatra in both western and eastern directions indicates two contrasting wind directions and suggests that 1 the toba eruption probably happened during the southeast asian summer monsoon season and 2 the volume of erupted magma was larger than previously interpreted

did the 73 ka toba super eruption have an enduring effect insights from genetics prehistoric archaeology pollen analysis stable isotope geochemistry geomorphology ice cores and climate models abstract the potential impact of the 73 ka toba super eruption upon global and regional climate terrestrial ecosystems and prehistoric human populations remains unclear evidence from genetics prehistoric archaeology pollen analysis stable isotope geochemistry geomorphology ice cores and climate models has provided some useful working hypotheses further progress requires a substantial improvement in the accuracy precision and resolution of the chronologies of each of the marine and terrestrial proxy records used to reconstruct the environmental impact of this extreme event

convective thinning of the lithosphere a mechanism for the initiation of continental rifting thinning of the lithosphere by heat carried convectively to its base is a possible mechanism for the initiation of continental rifting the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary marks the transition from a quasi rigid behavior of the mantle on geological time scales to a viscous one the boundary lies at or close to the solidus of the mantle material and its position is a function of temperature and pressure additional heat carried to the boundary will cause it to rise and the lithosphere to thin a one dimensional model is used to study the upward movement of the boundary from an initial equilibrium position as a consequence of an increase in the heat flux from the convecting mantle the ratio of the amount of thinning to the initial thickness is directly proportional to the increase in heat flux from the asthenosphere and inversely proportional to the difference between the final subcrustal geothermal gradient and the slope of the transition temperature profile the rate of thinning is determined by the initial and final equilibrium thicknesses the thermal diffusivity the transition temperature profile and the plume temperature profile it depends only slightly on any latent heat associated with the lithosphere asthenosphere transition during a large fraction of the time between the initial and final equilibrium states the lithosphere thins at a rate which is inversely proportional to the square root of time t even 300 km thick lithospheres may be thinned to 50 km or crustal thicknesses in tens of million years by the heat advected by mantle plumes this heat contributes to an enhanced surface heat flow because of the constant level of radioactive heat production in the crust the ratio of the final to the initial surface heat flow increases much less than the ratio of the final to the initial heat flow from the asthenosphere for large increases in asthenospheric heat flow the lithosphere is almost thinned to the crust before any significant change of surface heat flow occurs uplift due to thermal expansion upon lithospheric thinning is of the order of 102 103 m a rayleigh taylor instability acting on the thinning lithosphere may further increase thinning rates and cause magmatic intrusions of the lithosphere and surface volcanism

cooling of the south china sea by the toba eruption and correlation with other climate proxies 71 000 years ago the toba tephra layer has been identified in core md972151 in the southern south china sea scs northeast of the indonesia toba caldera this affords us an opportunity to directly determine a 1 c cooling for ca 1 kyr on the scs following the toba eruption 71 ka during the marine isotope stage 5a 4 transition using century scale sea surface temperature records this cooling event in the scs is well correlated with several coeval proxies such as increased east asia winter monsoon intensity increased ice rafted detritus in the north pacific ocean sediments and decreased 18 o in greenland ice core such correlation suggests a climate change where cold climate signals originated in the northern hemisphere ice sheets transferred southward by the winter monsoon and cooled the scs

tuite γ ca3 po4 2 formed by chlorapatite decomposition in a shock vein of the suizhou l6 chondrite tuite ca3 po4 2 was first discovered as the high pressure phase of whitlockite in shock veins of the suizhou l6 meteorite this study reports the finding of tuite in a shock vein of the same suizhou chondrite as a product of decomposition of chlorapatite where it coexists with coarse grained ringwoodite majorite lingunite fine grained majorite pyrope solid solution and magnesiowustite moreover we also successfully synthesized tuite with a multianvil apparatus from chlorapatite at 15 gpa and 1573 k over 24 h both natural and synthetic tuite crystals were examined by means of optical microscopy scanning electron microscope electron microprobe analysis x ray diffraction and raman spectroscopy our results suggest that the na2o mgo and cl contents in natural tuite may serve as good indicators for distinguishing the precursor phosphate mineral chlorapatite or whitlockite

a comparison of rift zone tectonics in iceland and hawaii observations of eroded volcanic rift zones indicate that dikes in iceland are typically several times thicker than those in hawaii geodetic and seismic observations of active rifts however suggest that dike heights in the two regions are similar provided the elastic properties of the rift zones are the same this implies that dikes are intruded with higher driving pressures magma pressure minus compressive stress perpendicular to the dike plane in iceland than hawaii a second major difference between the two regions is the greater prevalence of large normal fault scarps in rift zones in iceland from this it can be infered that a lower percentage of dikes breach the surface in iceland than in hawaii thus although dikes in iceland are intruded with higher driving pressures they possess lower absolute magma pressures than in hawaii these differences can be interpreted in terms of the tectonic settings in the two regions in iceland a steady remote extension reduces the horizontal stress perpendicular to the rift zone allowing dikes to be intruded with low absolute pressures but high driving pressures when magma becomes available in hawaii a more continuous magma supply on the timescale over which the dike induced stresses are relaxed and perhaps a greater role for intrusions in driving long term rift extension ensure that the rift compressive stress is not relaxed significantly before the next dike is intruded thus the magma pressure must be nearly sufficient for eruption in order for intrusion to occur if the mechanism for relaxing the rift compressive stress were less efficient still then an even higher percentage of dikes would erupt and at times the rift zone trend could become an unfavorable orientation for dike intrusion such might be the case at mauna loa which lacks large rift zone faults and fissures and possesses numerous radial vents outside its two main rift zones

tephra sedimentation during the 2010 eyjafjallajokull eruption iceland from deposit radar and satellite observations the april may 2010 eruption of eyjafjallajokull volcano iceland was characterized by a nearly continuous injection of tephra in the atmosphere that affected various economic sectors in iceland and caused a global wide interruption of air traffic eruptive activity during 4 8 may 2010 was characterized based on short duration physical parameters in order to capture transient eruptive behavior of a long lasting eruption i e total grainsize distribution erupted mass and mass eruption rate averaged over 30 minute activity resulting 30 minute total grainsize distribution based on both ground and msg seviri satellite measurements is characterized by mdphi of about 2 phi and a fine ash content of about 30wt accumulation rate varied by two orders of magnitude with an exponential decay away from the vent whereas mdphi shows a linear increase until about 18 km from vent reaching a plateau of about 4 5 phi between 20 56 km associated mass eruption rate is in between 0 6 1 2 x 10 5 kg s 1 in situ sampling showed how fine ash mainly fell as aggregates of various typologies about 5 to 9 wt of the erupted mass remained in the cloud up to 1000 km from the vent suggesting that nearly half of the ash 7 phi settled as aggregates within the first 60 km particle sphericity and shape factor varied between 0 4 and 1 with no clear correlation with size and distance from vent our experiments also demonstrate how satellite retrievals and doppler radar grainsize detection can provide real time description of the source term but for a limited particle size range

limited global change due to the largest known quaternary eruption toba 74 kyr bp abstract the 74 kyr bp super eruption of toba volcano in sumatra is the largest known quaternary eruption on the basis of preserved deposits the eruption magnitude has been estimated at 7 10 15 kg 2800 km 3 of dense magma the largest sulphate anomaly in the greenland ice sheet project 2 core has been identified as fallout from toba s stratospheric aerosol veil correlation of the sulphate and oxygen isotope stratigraphy of the ice core suggests that the toba eruption might have played a role in triggering a millennium of cool climate prior to dansgaard oeschger event 19 although a comparable stadial preceded event 20 a possible 6 yr duration volcanic winter immediately following the eruption has also been proposed as the cause of a putative bottleneck in human population supporting in a general way the garden of eden model for the origin of modern humans however along with counter arguments regarding the timing of any demographic crash there remain major gaps in our understanding of the 74 kyr bp toba eruption that hinder attempts to model its global atmospheric and climatic and hence human consequences the tephra record reveals basic aspects of the eruption style but calculations of the duration and hence intensity and plume height of the event are poorly constrained furthermore estimates of the sulphur yield of the erupting magma central to predictions of its atmospheric and climatic impacts vary by two orders of magnitude 3 5 330 10 10 kg previous estimates of globally averaged surface cooling of 3 5 c after the eruption are probably too high a figure closer to 1 c appears more realistic the volcanological uncertainties need to be appreciated before accepting arguments for catastrophic consequences of the toba super eruption

tephrochronology of the toba tuffs four primary glass populations define the 75 ka youngest toba tuff northern sumatra indonesia four primary glass populations well defined by their sr ba and y concentrations occur in the youngest toba tuff ytt which was deposited during a supereruption of the toba caldera complex in northern sumatra 75 ka average concentrations of major and trace elements indicate a coherent systematic variation of glass composition across populations no clear pattern in the areal distribution of these four glass groups can be discerned the multiple glass populations of the ytt easily distinguish it from the single homogeneous glass population of the middle toba tuff 500 ka as represented by its basal vitrophyre and that of the oldest toba tuff 800 ka as represented by ash layer d at the ocean drilling program site 758 in the indian ocean

stratigraphy of the toba tuffs and the evolution of the toba caldera complex sumatra indonesia during the past 1 2 m y a magma chamber of batholithic proportions has developed under the 100 by 30 km toba caldera complex four separate eruptions have occurred from vents within the present collapse structure which formed from eruption of the 2800 km3 youngest toba tuff ytt at 74 ka eruption of the three older toba tuffs alternated from calderas situated in northern and southern portions of the present caldera the northern caldera apparently developed upon a large andesitic stratovolcano the calderas associated with the three older tuffs are obscured by caldera collapse and resurgence resulting from eruption of the ytt samosir island and the uluan block are two sides of a single resurgent dome that has resurged since eruption of the ytt samosir island is composed of thick ytt caldera fill whereas the uluan block consists mainly of the oldest toba tuff ott in the past 74000 years lava domes have been extruded on samosir island and along the caldera s western ring fracture this part of the ring fracture is the site of the only current activity at toba updoming and fumarolic activity the toba eruptions document the growth of the laterally continuous magma body which eventually erupted the ytt repose periods between the four toba tuffs range between 0 34 and 0 43 m y and give insights into pluton emplacement and magmatic evolution at toba

south atlantic volcanic margins the early cretaceous south atlantic continental break up and initial sea floor spreading were accompanied by large scale transient volcanism emplacing the parana etendeka continental flood basalts and voluminous extrusive constructions on the conjugate margins south of the torres arch abutment plateau on the north namibia margin we interpret four main tectono magmatic crustal units 1 oceanic crust 2 thickened oceanic crust covered by huge seaward dipping wedges 3 a c 150 km wide break up related rift zone partly covered by the dipping wedges and 4 thicker continental crust partly deformed by palaeozoic extension east of the early cretaceous rift similar settings also characterize other south atlantic margin segments we infer an up to 300 km wide and 2400 km long rift zone representing lithospheric extension leading to breakup and formation of the south atlantic volcanic margins comparison with other volcanic margins demonstrates in spite of local and regional differences gross similarities in tectono magmatic style crustal units and dimensions

a micromorphological study of pedogenic processes in an evolutionary soil sequence formed on late quaternary rhyolitic tephra deposits north island new zealand abstract the influence of time as a soil forming factor was studied on an evolutionary sequence of five soils 1850 radiocarbo years bp ca 120 000 bp developed in rhyolitic tephra deposits in new zealand new micromorphological observations were combined with existing macromorphological chemical textural and clay mineralogical analyses to assess the extent of polygenesis in the soils the younger soils 1850 bp to ca 22 600 bp are characterised by initial weathering and little secondary mineral formation this status is expressed by abundant pumice fragments and fresh easily weatherable minerals as well as a low clay content with an isotropic character comminution and neoformation are the main pedological processes the older soils ca 120 000 bp are characterised by a high degree of alteration of primary minerals little or no pumice fragments clay illuviation gleying and a high clay content 80 consisting of a range of crystalline clay minerals including halloysite gibbsite kaolinite and vermiculite plus crystalline iron oxides evidence of polygenesis can be observed in the micromorphology of the older soils 1 the range of secondary minerals is the result of the integration and succession of soil forming processes through time 2 the accumulatory character of the tephra deposits has resulted in stronger weathering of the lower horizons than upper horizons because of continuous pedogenesis such polygenesis in the older soils supports the view that the older the soil the more polygenetic it is likely to be

eclogitic minerals in a shocked basaltic meteorite analytical transmission electron microscopy atem was used to characterize mineral parageneses occurring in melt veins of shock origin in the martian meteorite zagami we discovered a new ultra high pressure eclogite facies mineral assemblage consisting of omphacite stishovite and kalsi3o8 hollandite these tiny 200 300 nm high pressure minerals are embedded in silicate glass which forms the groundmass of the shock veins the microtexture of the veins and zoning of the clinopyroxene indicate the formation of minerals by crystallization from a high pressure melt using calibration data from shock and multi anvil experiments we infer that frictional melting occurred in veins at minimum temperatures of 2400 2500 c and at a pressure of ca 30 gpa subsequently the high pressure phases crystallized during decompression in the pressure interval from 25 5 gpa

toba ash on the indian subcontinent and its implications for correlation of late pleistocene alluvium the toba ash occurs extensively in the indian subcontinent and marks a ca 74 000 yr old event in the bay of bengal and indian ocean it is about 10 cm thick whereas in several alluvial basins it is usually 1 3 m thick the latter occurs in a partly reworked state but as nearly chemically pure first cycle sediments the ash has a broad northwesterly dispersal pattern samples of ash from the indian subcontinent compare closely with the youngest 74 000 yr b p toba tuff and the deep sea toba ash in bulk chemical composition ree signature and bubble wall shard morphology however a more proximally located and thicker 2 5 m ash bed from the alluvial basins in the gneissic area and close to east coast has a lower magnitude negative eu anomaly possibly because of minor contamination by feldspathic silt quaternary sediments in the central narmada and middle son basins contain rich late and middle pleistocene mammalian and cultural records based on the presence of the ash layer marker and stratigraphic relations late pleistocene sediments within the subcontinent can be correlated with those from central india and the deep sea

the 73 ka toba super eruption and its impact history of a debate abstract toba volcano in northern sumatra is located at the intersection of two major tectonic lineaments in one of the most seismically active regions in the world and its caldera is considered the largest quaternary caldera on earth the most recent toba explosive eruption at 73 ka was an order of magnitude larger than that of tambora in 1815 and has a volcanic explosivity index of 8 the exceptional magnitude of this super eruption and the widespread distribution of the younger toba tuff ytt in marine cores in the indian ocean the arabian sea and the south china sea have prompted sustained debate as to its global and regional impact on climate ecosystems and prehistoric human populations however despite climate modelling and appeals to a variety of proxy climatic data including geochemistry pollen analysis archaeology and stable isotopes the extent of the impact remains unclear in order to achieve better progress in the future greater care is needed to obtain higher resolution and more precise chronologies from the marine and terrestrial proxy records used to test whether or not the 73 ka toba super eruption had a significant environmental impact records from speleothems and ice cores have much to offer in this regard

individual glass shard trace element analyses confirm that all known toba tephra reported from india is from the c 75 ka youngest toba eruption uncertainty over the identity and age of toba tephras across peninsular india persists with radiometric age dates contradicting earlier compositional data which have been used to identify this important stratigraphic marker as the youngest toba tuff ytt to address this issue new single glass shard analyses have been performed for samples from morgaon and bori north western india which have recently been dated at c 800 ka these and indeed all toba tephra samples thus far analysed from india show the presence of four populations of glass shards defined by their ba y ratio which uniquely identifies them as products of the c 75 ka youngest toba eruption confirmation that the ytt fingerprint is characteristic comes from new analyses of oldest toba tuff ott glass shards from five sites in the indian ocean these are compositionally identical to layer d from the odp site 758 sediment core c 800 ka and belong to a single low ba population clearly different from ytt these analyses show that there is essentially no reworked ott material in the ytt eruption and indicate unequivocally that all known toba tephra occurrences in india belong to the c 75 ka youngest toba eruption