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Publications (311)
Stepwise acid leaching experiments were performed on the pre‐rain CM2 fall Aguas Zarcas to interrogate release patterns and isolate fractions with isotopic anomalies. Acid leachates and a bulk sample were analyzed for elemental abundances via solution ICP‐MS, and Sr and Ba isotopic compositions were measured using TIMS. Isotopic systematics reveal...
Chemical anomalies in polar ice core records are frequently linked to volcanism; however, without the presence of (crypto)tephra particles, links to specific eruptions remain speculative. Correlating tephras yields estimates of eruption timing and potential source volcano, offers refinement of ice core chronologies, and provides insights into volca...
Continental magmatic arcs commonly have heterogeneous and anisotropic metamorphic basement foundations hosting their plutonic roots and associated geothermal systems. Quaternary volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks of New Zealand's Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ) lie above and between the Torlesse and Waipapa Composite Terranes, two of New Zealand's major b...
New geochemical data, including Sr–Nd–Pb isotopes for whole-rock and groundmass samples, are reported for edifice-forming eruptives at Tongariro volcano, New Zealand, which span its ~ 350 ka to late Holocene history. Tongariro eruptives are medium-K basaltic-andesites to dacites (53.0–66.2 wt% SiO2) that evolved via assimilation-fractional crystall...
Volcanic ash (tephra) horizons are an essential tool for the spatial and temporal correlation of many natural archives. However, tephrochronology is accompanied by age uncertainties that often limit its capacity to effectively constrain age models. This is particularly problematic for paleoseismology in complex tectonic settings such as New Zealand...
Volatile measurements in mineral-hosted sealed melt inclusions, and open-ended embayments, have previously been used to study magma ascent dynamics in large rhyolitic eruptions. However, despite occurring more frequently, smaller-volume explosive events remain under-studied. We present magmatic volatile data from quartz-hosted melt inclusions and e...
The ~25.5‐ka Ōruanui supereruption (Taupō volcano, New Zealand) erupted >1100 km3 of pyroclastic material during the Last Glacial Maximum. The impacts of this event on climate and the New Zealand environment remain unresolved, particularly on ecological timescales. Using sediment cores from Onepoto maar palaeolake, Auckland (~240 km upwind from sou...
Oxygen isotopes are useful for tracing interactions between magmas, crustal rocks and surface‐derived waters. We use them here to consider links between voluminous silicic magmatism and large‐scale hydrothermal circulation in New Zealand's central Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ). We present >350 measurements of plagioclase, quartz, hornblende and groundm...
Taupō, New Zealand, is an active caldera volcano that in recent times has erupted on average every ~500 years, with the latest explosive eruption in 232±10 CE. Monitoring at Taupō is challenging as there has been no eruptive activity in documented history; however, Taupō does undergo periods of unrest on roughly a decadal timescale, such as in 2019...
The transport and degassing pathways of volatiles through large silicic magmatic systems are central to understanding geothermal fluid compositions, ore deposit genesis, and volcanic eruption dynamics and impacts. Here, we document sulfur (S), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F) concentrations in a range of host materials in eruptive deposits from Taup...
Lake Taupō (Taupō-nui-a-Tia) infills the composite caldera above an active rhyolitic magmatic system in the central Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ). Ground deformation is a key unrest indicator at Taupō volcano. We present a spreadsheet tool, TaupōInflate, to calculate and plot ground deformation from magmatic inflation at depth beneath Taupō caldera. Ex...
Thick sequences of silicic ignimbrites contain complex emplacement and cooling histories, often masking contacts between ignimbrite flow packages. Mineralogical and textural variations in these sequences are primarily a function of emplacement temperature and cooling time. Here, we focus on the use of the silica polymorph tridymite to understand th...
Silicic caldera volcanoes are frequently situated in regions of tectonic extension, such as continental rifts, and are subject to periods of unrest and/or eruption that can be triggered by the interplay between magmatic and tectonic processes. Modern (instrumental) observations of deformation patterns associated with magmatic and tectonic unrest in...
We consider here the validity, accuracy, and precision of rhyolite-MELTS modelling in inferring the pre-eruptive magma storage conditions for the caldera-forming 25.5 ka Oruanui and 232 CE (1.72 ka) Taupō eruptions at Taupō volcano, New Zealand as proposed by Pamukçu et al. (2020: Contrib Mineral Petrol 175: 48). There are four major issues with th...
Andesites erupted from Tongariro volcano, North Island, New Zealand contain feldspathic and quartzose xenoliths derived from basement rocks. New major oxide, trace element and Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic data indicate that both the Waipapa and Kaweka (meta)sedimentary terranes are represented in erupted xenoliths, rather than only the Kaweka terrane as previ...
The ⁸⁷ Rb- ⁸⁷ Sr radiochronometer provides key insights into the timing of volatile element depletion in planetary bodies, yet the unknown nucleosynthetic origin of Sr anomalies in Ca-Al–rich inclusions (CAIs, the oldest dated solar system solids) challenges the reliability of resulting chronological interpretations. To identify the nature of these...
Supereruptions are the largest explosive volcanic eruptions on Earth. They generate catastrophic, widespread ash-fall blankets and voluminous ignimbrites, with accompanying caldera collapse. However, the mechanisms of generation, storage and evacuation of the parental silicic magma bodies remain controversial. In this Review, we synthesize field, l...
Plain Language Summary
Taupō in New Zealand, is a large caldera volcano which has been very active in recent geological time, but has not erupted for about 1,800 years. However, in historical times it has undergone periods of unrest involving abundant, sometimes damaging earthquakes, and ground deformation, but no eruption. In 2019, Taupō volcano u...
Ruapehu (150 km 3 cone, 150 km 3 ring-plain) and Tongariro (90 km 3 cone, 60 km 3 ring-plain) are iconic stratovolcanoes, formed since ∼230 and ∼350 ka, respectively, in the southern Taupo Volcanic Zone and Taupo Rift. These volcanoes rest on Mesozoic metasedimentary basement with local intervening Miocene sediments. Both volcanoes have complex gro...
Tarawera volcano (New Zealand) is volumetrically dominated by rhyolitic lavas and pyroclastic deposits, but the most recent event in AD 1886 was a basaltic Plinian fissure eruption. In March 2019 a swarm of at least 64 earthquakes occurred to the NE of Tarawera volcano, as recorded by the New Zealand Geohazard Monitoring Network (GeoNet). We use se...
The Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) in the central North Island of New Zealand lies across the boundary formed in the late Mesozoic between two major basement regions: the Waipapa and Torlesse composite terranes. However, the precise location of this terrane contact within the TVZ is not well constrained because it is buried beneath Pleistocene volcanic...
Taupō volcano (New Zealand) is distinguished as the source of Earth's youngest supereruption (∼25.5 ka), with Lake Taupō occupying the resulting caldera. Taupō has also produced eruptions of a wide variety of sizes, styles and associated landscape responses over a ∼350 kyr period. Early Taupō (>54 ka) is poorly demarcated, merging with Maroa to the...
Detailed mapping and geochronological investigations of edifice-forming materials reconstruct the growth history of Tongariro volcano, New Zealand, and subdivide the edifice into thirty six distinct units which are organised into twelve formations and constituent members. Twenty nine new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations, along with published K/Ar ages...
Studies of pre-eruptive processes at active volcanoes require precise petrochronological constraints if they are to contribute to hazard assessment during future eruption events. We present petrological and geochemical data and orthopyroxene diffusion time scales for samples from Late Pleistocene high-Mg andesite-dacite lavas (Mg# 53–69) at Ruapehu...
Understanding the origins of the mantle melts that drive voluminous silicic volcanism is challenging because primitive magmas are generally trapped at depth. The central Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ; New Zealand) hosts an extraordinarily productive region of rhyolitic caldera volcanism. Accompanying and interspersed with the rhyolitic products, there a...
The central part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ), New Zealand, is notable for the number (23) and size of its high-temperature geothermal systems. Of these, the Wairakei-Tauhara geothermal system collectively represents the largest commercially developed example. Natural thermal output prior to utilisation, i.e. before 1950 was ∼530 MW. Since 1950...
Abrupt volcanogenic cooling of the Earth - “volcanic winters” - has been documented after historic eruptions, but the impacts of the largest known events remains highly speculative. Scientific drilling of sediment and ice cores has recovered Antarctic palaeoclimate records that provide a unique opportunity to determine how and at what rate the clim...
We use crustal seismic anisotropy measurements in the North Island, New Zealand to examine structures and stress within the Taupō Volcanic Zone, the Taranaki Volcanic Lineament, the subducting Hikurangi slab and the Hikurangi fore‐arc. Results in the Taranaki region are consistent with NW‐SE oriented extension, yet they suggest that the Taranaki vo...
A U-Pb zircon geochronology for the Rotokawa geothermal system, central Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ), New Zealand, provides new constraints on the chronostratigraphy and volcanic and structural evolution of this area and the broader TVZ. The 3-km-thick volcanic sequence at Rotokawa is mainly composed of rhyolitic ignimbrites linked to large caldera-fo...
The Taupo eruption deposit is an isochronous marker bed that spans much of New Zealand’s North Island and pre-dates human arrival. Holdaway et al. (2018, Nature Comms 9, 4110) propose that the current Taupo eruption date is inaccurate and that the eruption occurred “…decades to two centuries…” after the published wiggle-match estimate of 232 ± 10 C...
We present new nucleosynthetic, radiogenic and stable Sr isotopic data from fifteen previously studied CAIs from the Allende CV3 meteorite, including the highly altered Curious Marie inclusion. We use double-spike TIMS techniques to determine the degrees of isotopic mass fractionation, and also present internally normalised data for the same sample...
Hazard analysis at caldera volcanoes is challenging due to the wide range of eruptive and environmental conditions that can plausibly occur during renewed activity. Taupo volcano, New Zealand, is a frequently active and productive rhyolitic caldera volcano that has hosted the world's youngest known supereruption and numerous smaller explosive event...
The 2.08 Ma, ~2,500 km3 Huckleberry Ridge Tuff (HRT) eruption, Yellowstone, generated two fall deposits and three ignimbrite members (A, B, C), accompanying a ~95 x 65 km caldera collapse. Field data imply that the pre-A fall deposits took weeks to be erupted, then breaks of weeks to months occurred between members A and B, and years to decades bet...
The Taupō volcanic zone (TVZ), New Zealand, is a global end-member of continental volcanic arcs. The central TVZ features exceptionally high heat-flow and hosts one of the most productive and frequently active silicic mag-matic systems on Earth, which is ultimately driven by large volumes of mafic magma from the mantle. We here consider the possibl...
Melt inclusions within phenocrysts are typically analyzed to determine magmatic water concentrations, but this method is limited by the availability and quality of the inclusions. In this study, we expand the range of volcanic rocks that can be analyzed for magmatic water concentrations by determining an empirical partition coefficient between hydr...
We integrate field observations with geochemical data from quartz-hosted melt inclusions to develop a hydrogen diffusion-based method to shed light on timescales and conduit processes during the opening stages of two supereruptions. We focus on the initial explosive phases (first ~5% of the total magma volume erupted) from: (1) the episodic Oruanui...
The following statement was omitted from the acknowledgments section of the manuscript but is included now in accordance with U.S. Geological Survey policy. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
The silicic (broadly dacitic to rhyolitic) magmatic systems that feed supereruptions show great diversity, but have in common a role for mafic (broadly basaltic to andesitic) magmas as drivers of the systems. Here we document the mafic component in the rhyolitic magmatic system of the 2.08 Ma Huckleberry Ridge Tuff (HRT), Yellowstone, and compare i...
The youngest major caldera-forming event at Yellowstone was the ~ 630-ka eruption of the Lava Creek Tuff. The tuff as mapped consists of two major ignimbrite packages (members A and B), linked to widespread coeval fall deposits and formation of the Yellowstone Caldera. Subsequent activity included emplacement of numerous rhyolite flows and domes, a...
Important clues to the initiation and early behavior of large (super-) eruptions lie in the records of degassing during magma ascent. Here we investigate the timescales of magma ascent for three rhyolitic supereruptions that show field evidence for contrasting behavior at eruption onset: (1) 650 km3, 0.767 Ma Bishop Tuff, Long Valley; (2) 530 km3,...
Time-composition relationships in eruptive sequences at composite volcanoes can show how the ongoing intrusion of magmas progressively affects the lithosphere at continental convergent margins. Here, new whole-rock and microanalytical major and trace element data from andesite-dacite lava flows are integrated with previous studies and existing isot...
Quenched juvenile mafic inclusions (enclaves) are an occasional but informative component in the deposits of large felsic eruptions. Typically, the groundmasses of these inclusions rapidly crystallize as the mafic magma is chilled against a more voluminous, cooler felsic host, providing a physical and chemical record of the nature and timing of maf...
Complexities in the nature of large-scale silicic eruptions and their magmatic systems can be discerned through micro-analytical geochemical studies. We present high-resolution, stratigraphically constrained compositional data on glassy matrix material and feldspar crystals from the initial fall deposits and earliest ignimbrite (base of member A) o...
Hydrothermal alteration zoning and processes provide insights into the evolution of heat source(s) and fluid compositions associated with geothermal systems. Traditional petrological techniques, combined with hydrothermal alteration studies, stable isotope analyses and geochronology can resolve the nature of the fluids involved in hydrothermal proc...
Rubin et al. (Reports, 16 June 2017, p. 1154) proposed that gradients in lithium abundance in zircons from a rhyolitic eruption in New Zealand reflected short-lived residence at magmatic temperatures interleaved with long-term “cold” (<650°C) storage. Important issues arise with the interpretation of these lithium gradients and consequent crystal t...
The links between large-scale silicic volcanism and plutonism offer insights into the dynamics of crustal magmatic systems and growth of continental crust. In Hong Kong, voluminous silicic ignimbrites and linked plutons record a ~26 Myr period of magmatism from ~164 to 138 Ma. We present data from these linked volcanic-plutonic assemblages at the L...
An enduring question is: what controls the longevity and position of geothermal systems in areas of active volcanism and rifting? Can deep-seated crustal discontinuities focus the upwards transport of subduction-related melts and volatiles and influence the compositional variability in magmatic and geothermal fluids? Rifting arc models of the Taupo...
Multiple, independent time markers are essential to correlate sediment and ice cores from the terrestrial, marine and glacial realms. These records constrain global paleoclimate reconstructions and inform future climate change scenarios. In the Northern Hemisphere, sub-visible layers of volcanic ash (cryptotephra) are valuable time markers due to t...
The timescales over which magmas in large silicic systems are reactivated, assembled and stored remains a fundamental question in volcanology. To address this question, we study timescales from Fe–Mg interdiffusion in orthopyroxenes and Ti diffusion in quartz from the caldera-forming 1200 km³ Kidnappers and 200 km³ Rocky Hill eruptions from the Man...
Strontium isotopic anomalies in meteorites are important in assessing nucleosynthetic sources to, and measuring the timing of, early solar system processes. However, conventional use of a constant ⁸⁸Sr/⁸⁶Sr value in correcting for instrumental mass fractionation during analysis renders measurements ambiguous and removes information on mass-dependen...
We provide a synthesis of a workshop held in February 2016 to define the goals, challenges and next steps for developing a national probabilistic volcanic hazard model for New Zealand. The workshop involved volcanologists, statisticians, and hazards scientists from GNS Science, Massey University, University of Otago, Victoria University of Wellingt...
We use comprehensive geochemical and petrological records from whole-rock samples, crystals, matrix glasses and melt inclusions to derive an integrated picture of the generation, accumulation and evacuation of 530 km³ of crystal-poor rhyolite in the 25.4 ka Oruanui supereruption (New Zealand). New data from plagioclase, orthopyroxene, amphibole, qu...
Linking tephras back to their source centre(s) in
volcanic fields is crucial not only to reconstruct the eruptive
history of the volcanic field but also to understand
tephra dispersal patterns and thus the potential hazards
posed by a future eruption. Here we present a multidisciplinary
approach to correlate distal basaltic tephra deposits
from the...
The geological record of volcanic eruptions suggests that scientists are some way from being able to forecast eruptions at many of the world's volcanoes. There are three reasons for this. First, continuing geological discoveries show that our knowledge is incomplete. Second, knowledge is limited about why, how, and when volcanic unrest turns into e...