Accumulation rates of volcanic glass and ice-rafted debris in sediments of the North Pacific Ocean

• Main Authors: Prueher, Libby M, Rea, David K
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2001
• Subjects: 145-882; 145-883; 145-887; COMPCORE; Composite Core; Joides Resolution; Leg145; North Pacific Ocean; Ocean Drilling Program; ODP; Pacific; Kamchatka
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.706310; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.706310

Mass accumulation rates (MAR) of different components of North Pacific deep-sea sediment provide detailed information about the timing of the onset of major Northern Hemisphere glaciation that occurred at 2.65 Ma. An increase in explosive volcanism in the Kamchatka-Kurile and Aleutian arcs occured at this same time, suggesting a link between volcanism and glaciation. Sediments recovered by piston-coring techniques during ODP Leg 145 provide a unique opportunity to undertake a detailed test of this possibility. Here we use volcanic glass as a proxy for explosive volcanism and ice-rafted debris (IRD) as a proxy for glaciation. The MAR of both glass and IRD increase markedly at 2.65 Ma. Further, the flux of the volcanic glass increased just prior the flix of ice-radted material, suggesting that the cooling resulting from explosive volcanic eruptions may have been the ultimate trigger for the mid-Pliocene glacial intensification.