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A pulse of mid-Pleistocene rift volcanism in Ethiopia at the dawn of modern humans

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Hutchison_2016_NatComms_RiftVolcanism_CC.pdf (2.063Mb)
Date
18/10/2016
Author
Hutchison, William
Fusillo, Raffaella
Pyle, David M.
Mather, Tamsin A.
Blundy, Jon D.
Biggs, Juliet
Yirgu, Gezahegn
Cohen, Benjamin E.
Brooker, Richard A.
Barfod, Dan N.
Calvert, Andrew T.
Keywords
GE Environmental Sciences
Chemistry(all)
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Physics and Astronomy(all)
DAS
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Abstract
The Ethiopian Rift Valley hosts the longest record of human co-existence with volcanoes on Earth, however, current understanding of the magnitude and timing of large explosive eruptions in this region is poor. Detailed records of volcanism are essential for interpreting the palaeoenvironments occupied by our hominin ancestors; and also for evaluating the volcanic hazards posed to the 10 million people currently living within this active rift zone. Here we use new geochronological evidence to suggest that a 200 km-long segment of rift experienced a major pulse of explosive volcanic activity between 320 and 170 ka. During this period, at least four distinct volcanic centres underwent large-volume (>10 km3) caldera-forming eruptions, and eruptive fluxes were elevated five times above the average eruption rate for the past 700 ka. We propose that such pulses of episodic silicic volcanism would have drastically remodelled landscapes and ecosystems occupied by early hominin populations.
Citation
Hutchison , W , Fusillo , R , Pyle , D M , Mather , T A , Blundy , J D , Biggs , J , Yirgu , G , Cohen , B E , Brooker , R A , Barfod , D N & Calvert , A T 2016 , ' A pulse of mid-Pleistocene rift volcanism in Ethiopia at the dawn of modern humans ' , Nature Communications , vol. 7 , 13192 . https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13192
Publication
Nature Communications
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13192
ISSN
2041-1723
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Description
This work is a contribution to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded RiftVolc project (NE/L013932/1, Rift volcanism: past, present and future). W.H. was funded by NERC studentship, NE/J5000045/1 and a Boise Trust Fund from the Department of Zoology (University of Oxford). R.F. was funded through European Research Council Advanced Grant ‘CRITMAG’ to J. Blundy.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9757

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