Elsevier

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 170, 15 August 2017, Pages 269-275
Quaternary Science Reviews

Implications of S1 tephra findings in Dead Sea and Tayma palaeolake sediments for marine reservoir age estimation and palaeoclimate synchronisation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.06.020Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The early Holocene S1 tephra is the first ever found in the Dead Sea sediments.

  • The Anatolian S1 tephra spread over at least 1240 km southwards to NW Arabia.

  • Terrestrial 14C dates refine original marine S1 tephra age to 8939 ± 83 cal yr BP.

  • Early Holocene marine reservoir age for the SE Levantine Sea is refined to 320 yrs.

  • Delayed response to early Holocene humid period in NW Arabia compared to the Levant.

Abstract

Here we report on the first findings of a cryptotephra in the Holocene lacustrine sediment records of the Dead Sea and Tayma palaeolake (NW Arabian Peninsula). The major element glass composition of this rhyolitic tephra is identical to the distal ‘S1’ tephra layer identified in the Yammoûneh palaeolake (Lebanon), in a marine sediment record from the SE Levantine basin and in the Sodmein Cave archaeological site in Egypt. The S1 tephra corresponds to the early Holocene ‘Dikkartın’ dome eruption of the Erciyes Dağ volcano in central Anatolia (Turkey) and has been dated in the marine record at 8830 ± 140 cal yr BP. We present new age estimates of the S1 tephra based on radiocarbon dating of terrestrial plant remains and pollen concentrates revealing ages of 8939 ± 83 cal yr BP in the Dead Sea sediments and 9041 ± 254 cal yr BP in Tayma. The precise date from the Dead Sea allows refining the early Holocene marine reservoir age in the SE Levantine Sea to ca. 320 ± 50 years. Synchronisation of marine and terrestrial palaeoclimate records in the eastern Mediterranean region using the S1 tephra further suggests a time-transgressive expansion of the early Holocene humid period.

Introduction

Identifying tephra (volcanic fall material) in lacustrine and marine sediment records is important for the dating and regional synchronisation of palaeoclimate and archaeological records (e.g., Davies et al., 2012, Lane et al., 2013, Lowe et al., 2015, Wulf et al., 2013). Methodological advances enabled the finding of cryptotephras (non-visible by naked eye) in the sediments, which have multiplied the number of identified tephras and greatly extended the area of tephra dispersal (e.g., Davies, 2015, Lane et al., 2014, Satow et al., 2015, Wulf et al., 2013, Wulf et al., 2016).

In the eastern Mediterranean region, three main volcanic centres build the source regions for late Quaternary tephra dispersals, i.e. the Italian volcanic provinces, the Hellenic Arc and central and eastern Anatolia (Fig. 1). Comprehensive tephrostratigraphical efforts led to a profound knowledge of the chemical compositions and spatial distribution of late Quaternary Mediterranean tephra deposited in marine and terrestrial sediment records (e.g., Bourne et al., 2010, Federman and Carey, 1980, Keller et al., 1978, Narcisi and Vezzoli, 1999, Tomlinson et al., 2015, Wulf et al., 2002, Wulf et al., 2004, Zanchetta et al., 2011). So far, there is no evidence for regionally significant volcanic eruptions and tephra dispersal from the Arabian volcanic province including the Harrat Ash Shaam field (Fig. 1) of the southern Levant and northern Arabia in the late Quaternary (e.g., Hamann et al., 2010, Zanchetta et al., 2011). Furthermore, there is still a lack of tephra studies in the Levant, which is crucial for synchronising palaeoenvironmental records and archaeological events in this climatically sensitive area.

The only exception is the finding of the early Holocene ‘Dikkartın’ tephra from the Erciyes volcano in central Anatolia, Turkey, that has been reported as a visible layer in the Yammoûneh palaeolake in Lebanon (Develle et al., 2009) and in the marine core SL112 from the SE Levantine basin (Hamann et al., 2010), and as a cryptotephra at the Sodmein Cave archaeological site in Egypt (Barton et al., 2015) (Fig. 1). This so-called S1 tephra has been dated in the marine record at 8365 ± 65 14C yr BP, resulting in a calibrated age range of 8970–8690 cal yr BP when applying a reservoir age of 400 years (Hamann et al., 2010). The apparently widespread distribution of the S1 tephra encouraged us to search for evidence of this tephra in the lacustrine records from the Dead Sea and the Tayma palaeolake in NW Arabia (Fig. 1). Identification of the S1 cryptotephra in these records is expected to (1) extend the S1 tephra distribution, (2) refine the marine reservoir age for the early Holocene in the SE Levantine Sea, and (3) discuss lead and lag phase relationships of precipitation patterns in the Levantine-Arabian region.

Section snippets

Regional setting

The sedimentary record of the hypersaline Dead Sea is one of the most important palaeoclimate archives in the Levantine region (e.g., Enzel et al., 2006, Neugebauer et al., 2014, Stein, 2001). The Dead Sea is situated at the boundary between Mediterranean climate and the hyperarid Saharo-Arabian desert belt, where small changes in precipitation over its drainage area are sensitively recorded through changing lake levels and in sedimentation (e.g., Enzel et al., 2003, Stein et al., 2010). The

Sediment sampling

The selective search for the S1 tephra used radiocarbon-dated sediments of the ca. 21 m long core DSEn from the western margin of the Dead Sea (Migowski et al., 2004), and the ca. 6 m long core Tay253 from the eastern part of the Tayma palaeolake. The latter is correlated to the dated cores Tay220 and Tay254 (Dinies et al., 2015) using macroscopic sediment marker layers. The early Holocene Dead Sea (DSEn) and Tayma (Tay253) sediment sections were sampled in continuous 5 cm increments with

Tephra identification

Volcanic glass shards were detected in both, the Dead Sea and Tayma sediments (Fig. 2). In the Dead Sea, the highest glass shard concentration (n > 50) with the largest grain size (dmax = 70 μm) occurred within finely laminated sediments between 17.61 and 17.56 m depth (Fig. 2a). Glass shards have been further detected within intraclast breccias up to 45 cm above the primary layer at 17.61 m depth (Fig. 2a). Identified glass shards in the Tayma record spread over 38 cm from 5.86 to 5.48 m

Conclusions

  • 1)

    The early Holocene S1 tephra is the first volcanic ash identified in the Dead Sea sediment record and the first Mediterranean tephra ever documented on the Arabian Peninsula, located 1240 km to the south of the volcanic source. This extends the spread of Mediterranean tephra further to the Southeast.

  • 2)

    Based on 14C dating from the Dead Sea, we provide a precise terrestrial S1 tephra age of 8939 ± 83 cal yr BP, which allows to refine the marine reservoir age for the early Holocene SE Levantine Sea

Acknowledgements

We thank Neil Roberts for editing this article and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments to improve the discussion. Furthermore, we would like to thank H. Brückner and M. Engel (University of Cologne), who organised and performed the Tayma coring campaign in 2013, M. Stöttele (GFZ) for tephra sample preparation and M. Dinies (FU Berlin) for valuable discussions. This work was supported by the German Science Foundation DFG [BR2208/10-1; PL535/2-1] and is a contribution to the projects

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