Direct linking of Greenland and Antarctic ice cores at the Toba eruption (74 ka BP) ...

• Main Authors: Blunier, T., Severi, M., Udisti, R., Wilhelms, F., Kawamura, K., Schwander, Jakob, Winstrup, M., Popp, T., Bigler, Matthias, Kipfstuhl, S., Wegner, A., Svensson, A., Steffensen, J. P., Parrenin, F., Goto-Azuma, K., Vallelonga, P., Clausen, H. B., Dahl-Jensen, D., Johnsen, S. J., Uemura, R., Fischer, Hubertus, Seierstad, I., Kohno, M., Rasmussen, S. O., Fujita, S., Vinther, B. M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2013
• Subjects: 530 Physics; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Greenland; Antarc*; NGRIP
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7892/boris.47726; http://boris.unibe.ch/47726/

The Toba eruption that occurred some 74 ka ago in Sumatra, Indonesia, is among the largest volcanic events on Earth over the last 2 million years. Tephra from this eruption has been spread over vast areas in Asia, where it constitutes a major time marker close to the Marine Isotope Stage 4/5 boundary. As yet, no tephra associated with Toba has been identified in Greenland or Antarctic ice cores. Based on new accurate dating of Toba tephra and on accurately dated European stalagmites, the Toba event is known to occur between the onsets of Greenland interstadials (GI) 19 and 20. Furthermore, the existing linking of Greenland and Antarctic ice cores by gas records and by the bipolar seesaw hypothesis suggests that the Antarctic counterpart is situated between Antarctic Isotope Maxima (AIM) 19 and 20. In this work we suggest a direct synchronization of Greenland (NGRIP) and Antarctic (EDML) ice cores at the Toba eruption based on matching of a pattern of bipolar volcanic spikes. Annual layer counting between ...