著者

町田 洋 新井 房夫 百瀬 貢

出版者

特定非営利活動法人日本火山学会

雑誌

火山. 第2集 (ISSN:04534360)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.30, no.2, pp.49-70, 1985-07-01

被引用文献数

41

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The Aso-4 pyroclastic flow is one of the largest of late Pleistocene age in Japan covering extensive areas of Kyushu around the Aso caldera and western part of Honshu. We have recently discovered a distal ash which has very similar petrographic and chemical properties to the flow deposits at several localities of Japan, and is assumed to be an airfall part of the Aso-4 unit. The ash, named the Aso-4 ash, is a crystal-vitric fine-grained ash, consisting of rhyodacitic bubble-walled glass shards, and brown hornblende and orthopyroxene (bronzite) as mafic phenocrysts. Its identification is carried out by combined parameters ; refractive index of glass ranges 1.506-1.511, low refractive index of orthopyroxene (γ=1.699-1.701) and relatively high index of hornblende (n_2=1.687-1.688). In addition glass in the ash is characteristically rich in potassium. These properties are similar to those of the Aso-4 pyroclastic flows. It is suggested that the ash is a coignimbrite airfall deposit of fine-grained materials from the upper part of an eruption column formed at the same time as the Aso-4 flow. The ash mantles extensive areas from Kyushu to Hokkaido and is also recognized and identified in several piston cores from the Sea of Japan and the northwest Pacific Ocean. The fallout area of this ash is now known to attain approximately 4×10^6 km^2. It is striking that in the eastern part of Hokkaido, ca. 1700 km distant from the source, the ash with the thickness of 15 cm is well preserved immediately below the Kutcharo pyroclasitc flow deposits II/III. The bulk volume of this ash is estimated to be more than 400 km^3, possibly larger than that of the flow deposits. The stratigraphic position of this ash in standard sequence of South Kanto shows that it occurs after the Obaradai interstade (ca. 80 ka) and before the Misaki interstade (ca. 60 ka). Thus the Aso-4 ash provides a very important datum plane in late Pleistocene sequence in and around Japan.