50,000 yr of recurrent volcaniclastic megabed deposition in the Marsili Basin, Tyrrhenian Sea

Abstract

Megabeds are exceptionally large submarine deposits interpreted to originate from single catastrophic events. Megabeds are significant components of deep-water basins and are critical for understanding geohazards. We discovered a succession of four megabeds within the upper 70 m of the western Marsili Basin, Tyrrhenian Sea, deposited within the past 50 k.y. The megabeds were imaged as distinctive acoustically transparent units with ponded geometries, 10−25 m thick, separated by parallel-bedded strata. Cores from Site 650 of Ocean Drilling Program Leg 107 revealed that three of the four megabeds are made of alternating volcaniclastic sand and mud, and one is a volcaniclastic debris flow. Abundant shallow-water benthic foraminifera within the megabeds suggest that they were not sourced locally from the active Marsili Seamount, but most likely originated from the Campanian volcanic province to the north. The time interval during which the megabeds were deposited includes the 39.8 ka Campanian ignimbrite supereruption of the Campi Flegrei caldera, Italy, which is among the largest known eruptions on Earth, and the 14.9 ka Neapolitan Yellow Tuff supereruption. Volume (minimum) estimates range from 1.3 to 13.3 km3. However, similar megabeds observed in the neighboring Vavilov Basin to the west suggest that the megabeds in both basins may be correlative, and thus volumes could be much larger. The newly discovered megabeds of the Marsili Basin reveal significant geohazard events for the circum−Tyrrhenian Sea coastlines with a recurrence interval on the order of ∼10−15 k.y.