The preservation potential of ash layers in the deep-sea: the example of the 1991-Pinatubo ash in the South China Sea

Following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo on 15 June 1991, volcanic ash was transported westward to the South China Sea in an atmospheric plume, falling out and settling to the sea floor within days and forming an up to 10 cm thick layer on an area > 400 000 km2. Immediately after deposition, surviving deep-burrowing animals re-opened their connection to the sea floor to obtain water for respiration and/or food take-up. Later, small-sized meiofauna and then macrofauna re-colonized the sea floor, mixing newly deposited organic fluff with the underlying ash. Consequently, ash deposits thinner than 1 mm have not often been observed as a continuous layer when cored six years after the eruption, while ash about 2 mm thick is now patchily bioturbated. In areas covered by ash thicker than 5 mm, mixing by benthic animals is controlled mainly by the adaptation of the burrowing fauna to variations in grain-size, the rate of background sedimentation, the availability of benthic food on and within the sediment and pore water oxygen levels. With respect to these factors, four provinces can be distinguished: (i) Along the Philippines margin run-off from land fuels primary production that, in turn, leads to a high benthic food content. The benthic fauna is adapted to a variable grain-size and rapid sedimentation. Therefore, mixing is intense and the preservation potential of the ash layer is low. (ii) In areas affected by deposition of hyperpycnites and turbidites, i.e. in canyons in front of river mouths and in the Manila Trench, the ash layer is preserved due to rapid burial. (iii) The area to the west to about 116 degrees E receives low amounts of benthic food, benthic mixing is less intense and the preservation potential of the ash is high. (iv) The central South China Sea, where the ash is thinner than 3 cm, is affected by intense wind mixing and upwelling and the benthic food content is high; thus, the chance that the ash will be preserved as a sharp-based layer is low. Consequently, the style of ash preservation has palaeo-environmental significance. Older buried and burrowed event layers provide further information to elucidate the fate of the 1991 Pinatubo ash layer; in general their appearance fits with observations in the Recent.