From Volcanic Glass We Can Estimate Ancient Elevation – #365papers – 2017 – 27

#365papers for January 27, 2017

Dettinger and Quade, 2015, Testing the analytical protocols and calibration of volcanic glass for the reconstruction of hydrogen isotopes in paleoprecipitation: GSA Memoir 212, p. 261-276.

What’s it about?

This paper discussed in detail the protocol necessary to get reliable hydrogen isotopic data from volcanic glass. The authors check many variations and possible ways to isolate and clean the glass to determine which is the best way to do it.

Why does it matter?

Isotopes of hydrogen measured from volcanic glass provide information about the environmental temperatures when the volcano originally erupted. This provides another way to look at ancient climate and climate change events if desired, or in this case, to look at the uplift of mountains (because temperatures get cooler at higher elevation).

Why did I read this?

I’m reading this because I may be getting involved in a project that does just this – uses hydrogen isotopes from volcanic glass to determine how high some mountains were when the volcano was erupting.