[Aqualist] PhD project on Flores tephras

[Tim Barrows]

Hi Everyone,

Do you have an students currently finishing their honours who would be 
interested in applying for a Postgraduate Award to do a PhD at Wollongong 
on tephras from Flores (Indonesia)?  Some general details are given 
below.  If you know of anyone who is interested could you ask them to 
contact me directly?  I'll be in the field for a week but will be back on 
the 4th October.

All the best,

Chris Turney <turney at uow.edu.au>

Quaternary Tephras of Flores

Tephrochronology provides time-parallel marker horizons that allow precise 
correlation between environmental and climatic records of the recent 
geological past (Turney and Lowe, 2001).  Few (if any) geochronological 
techniques can provide the precision offered by tephrochronology.  The 
virtually instantaneous atmospheric deposition of tephra following an 
eruption can often lead to clear tephra layers in terrestrial, marine and 
ice cores sequences.  Tephra layers are particularly advantageous as each 
eruption constitutes material of distinctive geochemical make-up, thereby 
providing the potential for a robust means of correlation.

The island of Flores forms part of the Banda Arc and is a centre of 
extensive volcanic activity. Despite the significant potential for 
Quaternary tephrochronology, little work has been undertaken on the 
geochemical characterization of such deposits. Through comprehensive 
geological mapping and fission track dating of deposits in the Soa Basin of 
central Flores, it has been demonstrated that deposits containing Stegodon 
fossils are 1 million to 700,000 years old, with stone artefacts first 
appearing in the sequence about 840,000 years ago (Morwood et al. 1998; 
O'Sullivan et al. 2001). This latter finding provides compelling evidence 
for the early seafaring capabilities of Homo erectus, and demonstrates that 
they had crossed the Wallace Line much earlier than previously 
suspected.  Intercalated between the fossils and artefacts are extensive 
tephra horizons that have not been geochemically characterized.  This PhD 
project would aim to geochemically characterize many of the key tephra 
horizons across central Flores to undertake high-precision correlation of 
deposits spanning the last 1 million years.

References

Morwood, M.J., O'Sullivan, P.B., Aziz, F. and Raza, A. (1998) Fission-track 
ages of stone tools and fossils on the east Indonesian island of 
Flores.  Nature, 392, 173-176.
O'Sullivan, P.B., Morwood, M., Hobbs, D., Aziz, F., Suminto, Situmorang, 
M., Raza, A. and Maas, R. (2001) Archaeological implications of the geology 
and chronology of the Soa basin, Flores, Indonesia.  Geology, 29, 607-610.
Turney, C.S.M. and Lowe, J.J. (2001) Tephrochronology.  In W.M. Last and 
J.P. Smol (eds), Tracking Environmental Changes in Lake Sediments: Physical 
and Chemical Techniques.  Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The 
Netherlands, 451-471.

************************************************************************************** 


Dr. Chris Turney
President to the INQUA Sub-Commission for Tephrochronology and Volcanism
(SCOTAV)
Web page: http://www.gns.cri.nz/inquatephra/
Tephra extraction techniques virtual workshop:
http://www.qub.ac.uk/arcpal/Tephra/Tephratrace/Home.htm

Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellow
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Wollongong
Wollongong
NSW 2522
Australia

E-mail: turney at uow.edu.au
Tel.: +61 2 4221 3561
Fax.: +61 4221 4250