Pacific offshore record of plinian arc volcanism in Central America: 1. Along‐arc correlations

Abstract

We collected 56 marine gravity cores from the Pacific seafloor offshore Central America which contain a total of 213 volcanic ash beds. Ash‐layer correlations between cores and with their parental tephras on land use stratigraphic, lithologic, and compositional criteria. In particular, we make use of our newly built database of bulk‐rock, mineral, and glass major and trace element compositions of plinian and similarly widespread tephras erupted since the Pleistocene along the Central American Volcanic Arc. We thus identify the distal ashes of 11 Nicaraguan, 8 El Salvadorian, 6 Guatemalan, and 1 Costa Rican eruptions. Relatively uniform pelagic sedimentation rates allow us to determine ages of 10 previously undated tephras by their relative position between ash layers of known age. Linking the marine and terrestrial records yields a tephrostratigraphic framework for the Central American volcanic arc from Costa Rica to Guatemala. This is a useful tool and prerequisite to understand the evolution of volcanism at a whole‐arc scale.