Volcanic Fluxes Over the Last Millennium as Recorded in the Gv7 Ice Core (Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica)

Raffaello Nardin,Mirko Severi,Laura Caiazzo,Massimo Frezzotti,Silvia Becagli,Alessandra Amore,Rita Traversi,Barbara Stenni

doi:10.3390/geosciences10010038

Raffaello Nardin, Mirko Severi + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10010038

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Abstract

Major explosive volcanic eruptions may significantly alter the global atmosphere for about 2–3 years. During that period, volcanic products (mainly H2SO4) with high residence time, stored in the stratosphere or, for shorter times, in the troposphere are gradually deposited onto polar ice caps. Antarctic snow may thus record acidic signals providing a history of past volcanic events. The high resolution sulphate concentration profile along a 197 m long ice core drilled at GV7 (Northern Victoria land) was obtained by Ion Chromatography on around 3500 discrete samples. The relatively high accumulation rate (241 ± 13 mm we yr −1) and the 5-cm sampling resolution allowed a preliminary counted age scale. The obtained stratigraphy covers roughly the last millennium and 24 major volcanic eruptions were identified, dated, and tentatively ascribed to a source volcano. The deposition flux of volcanic sulphate was calculated for each signature and the results were compared with data from other Antarctic ice cores at regional and continental scale. Our results show that the regional variability is of the same order of magnitude as the continental one.

Highlights

In recent years, several studies have been published investigating the correlation between volcanic activity and climate and environmental variability [1,2]
We identified 24 peaks that are significantly different from the marine biogenic background
The double peak found between 11.05 and 11.32 m was attributed to the well-known and already documented Pinatubo volcanic eruption [28,30,34,35,36] and was dated to 1992

Summary

Introduction

Several studies have been published investigating the correlation between volcanic activity and climate and environmental variability [1,2]. The coarse magmatic material (essentially siliceous material) is much larger and heavier than the gaseous compounds and the particulate matter originated from gas-to-particle conversion. For this reason, the magmatic material is quickly removed from the atmosphere by settling (on the timescale of minutes to few weeks in the troposphere). The magmatic material is quickly removed from the atmosphere by settling (on the timescale of minutes to few weeks in the troposphere) As a result, these compounds have a very limited effect on the climate, except for areas in the immediate vicinity of the volcano [1]. Due to the interaction with the infrared and visible radiation [3,4], a rise in the temperatures can be observed in Geosciences 2020, 10, 38; doi:10.3390/geosciences10010038 www.mdpi.com/journal/geosciences

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