A 2680 year volcanic record from the DT-401 East Antarctic ice core

Volcanic signals recorded in the Antarctic and Greenland ice cores can provide useful information on past explosive volcanism and its impact. In this study, we carried out a continuous sulfate analysis of a 102.65 m East Antarctic ice core (DT-401, dated as 2682 years) and identified 36 extensive volcanic eruption signals using Cole-Dai's method, which gives an average of 1.4 eruptions per century, consistent with the results from the Plateau Remote (PR-B) ice core. When the record is divided into three parts, the latest millennium (1999-1000 A.D.), the middle millennium (999-1 A.D.), and the earliest 682 years (0 A.D. to 682 B.C.), it is found that there were more volcanic eruptions that occurred during the latest millennium (19 eruptions) than during the middle millennium (10 eruptions) of the record and that the intensities of the eruptions in the latest millennium are markedly larger than those in the middle one. There were only seven events recorded in the earliest 682 years, but their intensities were greater, and nearly half of the eruptions had a similar intensity to Tambora's (1815 A.D.), which differs from the PR-B record. It is also found that volcanism and its average accumulation rate were lower during the "Little Ice Age" than during the "Medieval Warm Period." Comparison of volcanic records between DT-401 and other Antarctica ice cores (PR-B, Dome C, DT-263, and Byrd) show that in the East Antarctica area with its lower accumulation rates, postdepositional effects may play an important role in the deposition of the sulfate.