The 1991 explosive Hudson volcanic eruption as a geochronological marker for the Northern Antarctic Peninsula

• Published in: Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências
• Main Authors: HEITOR EVANGELISTA, ALEXANDRE CASTAGNA, ALEXANDRE CORREIA, MARIUSZ POTOCKI, FRANCISCO AQUINO, ALEXANDRE ALENCAR, PAUL MAYEWSKI, ANDREI KURBATOV, RICARDO JAÑA, JULIANA NOGUEIRA, MARCUS LICINIO, ELAINE ALVES, JEFFERSON C. SIMÕES
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Academia Brasileira de Ciências 2021
• Subjects: Aerosols; Antarctic Peninsula; Hudson volcano; Volcanism; Science; Q; Antarctic; Detroit; Hudson; King George Island; South Pole; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202220210810; https://doaj.org/article/b0dcb2ed9857495faff40f80fde16768

Abstract It is estimated that the explosive Hudson volcano eruption in Southern Chile injected approximately 2.7 km3 of basalt and trachyandesite tephra into the troposphere between August 8-15, 1991. The Hudson signal has been detected in Antarctica at the eastern sector and in South Pole snow. In this work, we track the Hudson volcanic plume using a dispersion model, remote sensing, and a re-analysis of a high-resolution ice core analysis from the Detroit Plateau in the Antarctic Peninsula and sedimentary records from shallow lakes from King George Island (KGI). The Hudson eruption imprint in these records is confirmed by using a weekly resolved aerosol concentration database from KGI demonstrating that the regional impact of Hudson eruption predominates over the Mount Pinatubo/Phillippines volcanic signal, dated from June 1991, in terms of particulate matter depositions. The aerosol elemental composition of Ca, Fe, Ti, Si, Al, Zn, and Pb increases from 2 to 3 orders of magnitude in background level during the days following the eruption of the Hudson volcano.