Abstract
The climactic eruption of Mount Mazama in Oregon, North America, resulted in the deposition of the most widespread Holocene tephra deposit in the conterminous United States and south-western Canada. The tephra forms an isochronous marker horizon for palaeoenvironmental, sedimentary and archaeological reconstructions, despite the current lack of a precise age estimate for the source eruption. Previous radiocarbon age estimates for the eruption have varied, and Greenland ice-core ages are in disagreement. For the Mazama tephra to be fully utilised in tephrochronology and palaeoenvironmental research, a refined (precise and accurate) age for the eruption is required. Here, we apply a meta-analysis of all previously published radiocarbon age estimations (n = 81), and perform Bayesian statistical modelling to this data set, to provide a refined age of 7682–7584 cal. yr BP (95.4% probability range). Although the depositional histories of the published ages vary, this estimate is consistent with that estimated from the GISP2 ice-core of 7627 ± 150 yr BP (Zdanowicz et al., 1999).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1054-1067 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Holocene |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 25 Mar 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 9 Jul 2015 |
Keywords
- Bayesian statistics
- geochronology
- Holocene
- Mazama tephra
- radiocarbon dating
- tephrochronology
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Global and Planetary Change
- Archaeology
- Ecology
- Earth-Surface Processes
- Palaeontology
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