Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T21:15:22.135Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Plant deposition in modern volcanic environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Robyn J. Burnham
Robyn J. Burnham
Affiliation:
Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Volcanic eruptions and their deposits provide paleobiologists with an array of depositional environments in which to investigate the conditions in which exceptionally preserved flora and fauna are preserved. Studies of vegetation patterns before and after eruptions have shown that tropical vegetation makes a very rapid recovery at the vegetational level (proportion of devastated land covered). The recolonisation of the rare elements of a diversified flora, however, is slow, and so is the rebound of floristic richness, assembled over centuries from surrounding patches of vegetation and from in situ speciation.

Two major volcanic events that occurred in the past 15 years were studied in an attempt to understand the processes and complex patterns of plant deposition in volcanic landscapes. Both volcanoes gave rise to terrestrial, andesitic, explosive eruptions that gave little warning of their absolute magnitude or duration. In both eruptions, sediment-dammed lakes were formed in which a large quantity of plant material was trapped. In both instances, forests were killed and both standing and fallen trunks record the composition of the pre-eruption flora. The vegetation present in the vicinity of the volcanoes was, in the case of Mount St Helens (Washington, U.S.A.), dense coniferous forest living in a cool temperate climate and, in the case of El Chichón (Chiapas, Mexico), remnants of paratropical rainforest alternating with patches of agricultural land.

Litter layers are present under the tephra at both volcanic sites, yet the pattern of deposition and quality of the plant material differs dramatically between the two, in part because of differences in the types of eruptions and in part because of the nature of the plants available for burial. One of the most significant styles of burial, unexpected in the air-fall ash deposits, is the presence of more than one eruptive layer generated by eruptions only hours apart. These separate eruption layers have different lithological characteristics and the plant deposits buried in the different layers are different in taxonomic composition. Significantly, leaves in the upland volcanic-ash deposits are preserved thus far for 10 years, even in the tropical settings where root growth might be expected to have obliterated all signs of depositional stratigraphy. These impressions and compressions have a high likelihood of entering the fossil record and provide an excellent example of upland deposition and preservation.

Keywords

Plant taphonomyEl ChichónMexicoMount St HelensU.S.A.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 84 , Issue 3-4: Volcanism and early terrestrial biotas , 1993 , pp. 275 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Behrensmeyer, A. K. & Hook, R. W. 1992. Paleoenvironmental contexts and taphonomic modes. In Behrensmeyer, A. K., Damuth, J. D., DiMichele, W. A., Potts, R., Sues, H-D. & Wing, S. L. (Eds) Terrestrial ecosystems through time, 14–136. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Burnham, R. J. & Spicer, R. A. 1986. Forest litter preserved by volcanic activity at El Chichón, Mexico: A potentially accurate record of the pre-eruption vegetation. PALAIOS 1, 158–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, R. J., Wing, S. L. & Parker, G. G. 1992. The reflection of deciduous forest communities in leaf litter: implications for autochthonous litter assemblages from the fossil record. PALEOBIOLOGY 18(1), 34–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorf, E. 1960. Tertiary fossil forests of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. BILL GEOL SOC FIELD CONF 11, 253–60.Google Scholar
Eggler, W. A. 1959. Manner of invasion of volcanic deposits by plants, with further evidence from Parícutin and Jorullo. ECOL MONOG 29(3), 267–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, W. J. 1980. Reinterpretation of the depositional environment of the Yellowstone ‘fossil forests’. GEOLOGY 8, 309–313.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, W. J. 1986. Plant Taphonomy in areas of Explosive Volcanism. In Broadhead, T. W. (Ed.) Land Plants: notes for a short course, 1–9. UNIV TENNESSEE DEPT GEOL SCI STUD GEOL 15.Google Scholar
Fritz, W. J. & Harrison, S. 1985. Transported trees from the 1982 Mount St. Helens sediment flows: their use as paleocurrent indicators. SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY 42, 49–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadow, H. 1930. Jorullo: the history of the volcano of Jorullo and the reclamation of the devastated district by animals and plants. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 100p.Google Scholar
Hicks, J. F. 1992. Magnetostratigraphic correlation of the terrestrial Meeteetse Fm. with the marine Pierre Shale at Red Bird, WY. Abstract: SEPM 1992 Theme Meeting on Mesozoic of the Western Interior p. 32.Google Scholar
Jacobs, B. F. & Winkler, D. A. 1993. Taphonomy of a middle Miocene autochthonous forest assemblage, Ngorora Formation, Central Kenya. PALAEOGEOGR PALAEOCLIMATOL PALAEOECOL 99, 31–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karowe, A. L. & Jefferson, T. H. 1987. Burial of trees by eruptions of Mount St Helens, Washington: implications for the interpretation of fossil forests. GEOL MAG 124(3), 191–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipman, P. W. & Mullineaux, D. R. (Eds). 1981. The 1980 eruptions of Mount St Helens, Washington. US GEOL SURV PROF PAP 1250, 844 pp.Google Scholar
MacGinitie, H. D. 1953. Fossil plants of the Florissant beds, Colorado. CARNEGIE INST WASH PUBL 543.Google Scholar
MacGinitie, H. D. 1969. The Eocene Green River flora of northwestern Colorado and northeastern Utah. UNIV CALIF PUBL GEOL SCI 83.Google Scholar
MacGinitie, H. D. 1974. An Early Middle Eocene flora from the Yellowstone—Absaroka Volcanic Province, Northwestern Wind River Basin, Wyoming. UNIV CALIF PUBL GEOL SCI 108.Google Scholar
McKee, B. 1972. Cascadia. McGraw Hill, New York, 394 pp.Google Scholar
Pincha, E. M. W. 1987. Monitoring effects of the Mount St Helens Eruptions on the Toutle River drainage basin. In Bilderback, D. E. (Ed.) Mount St Helens 1980: botanical consequences of the explosive eruptions, 24–69. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rejmanék, M., Haagerova, R. & Haager, J. 1982. Progress of plant succession on the Parícutin volcano: 25 years after activity ceased. AM MIDL NATURA 108(1), 194–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, A. C. 1990. Preservation, evolution, and extinction of plans in Lower Carboniferous volcanic sequences in Scotland. In: Lockley, M. G. & Rice, A. (Eds) Volcanism and fossil biotas, 25–38. GEOL SOC AM SPEC PAP 244.Google Scholar
Sigurdsson, H., Carey, S. N. & Espindola, J. M. 1984. The 1982 eruptions of El Chichón volcano, Mexico: stratigraphy of pyroclastic deposits. J VOLCANOL GEOTHERM RES 23, 11–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva-Mora, L. 1983. La erupcion del volcan Chichonal, Chiapas; una particularidad del volanismo en Mexico. In El Volcan Chichonal, 23–35. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico: Instituto de Geologia.Google Scholar
Spicer, R. A. 1989. The formation and interpretation of plant fossil assemblages. ADV BOT RES 16, 95–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spicer, R. A., Burnham, R. J., Grant, P. & Glicken, H. 1985. Pityrogramma calomelanos, the primary post-eruption colonizer of Volcán Chichonal, Chiapas, Mexico. AM FERN J 75(1), 1–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swisher, C. C. III and Prothero, D. R. 1990. Single crystal Ar/Ar dating of the Eocene-Oligocene transition in North America. SCIENCE 249, 760–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taggart, R. E. & Cross, A. T. 1990. Plant successions and interruptions in Miocene volcanic deposits, Pacific Northwest. In: Lockley, M. G. & Rice, A. (Eds) Volcanism and fossil biotas, 57–68. GEOL SOC AM SPEC PAP 244.Google Scholar
Varekamp, J. C., Luhr, J. E. & Prestegaard, K. L. 1984. The 1982 eruptions of El Chichón volcano (Chiapas, Mexico): character of the eruptions, ash-fall deposits and gasphase. J VOLCANOL GEOTHERM RES 23, 39–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittaker, R. H., Bush, M. B. & Richards, K. 1989. Plant recolonization and vegetation succession on the Krakatau Islands, Indonesia. ECOL MONOG 59(2), 59–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar