Nowhere to hide: Volcanic ash invasion of limestone caves in New Zealand

Abstract

Limestone caves are commonly located close to volcanic regions and can preserve signals of past eruptions, providing crucial chronostratigraphic constraints within and beyond U-Th dating limits for karst development and cave evolution. Here we document five caves in the Waitomo karst region of New Zealand that contain volcanic ash (tephra) from the Taupō Volcanic Zone, a highly active region of silicic volcanism. The cave-hosted deposits are glassy due to their protection from weathering, with one example being poorly sorted and locally indurated where pyroclastic flows filled the cave. Other deposits are bedded and inferred to have been water remobilized into the caves from surficial ash deposits. Glass compositions indicate that tephras located in cave floors and roof cavities and on cave walls were sourced from four caldera-forming eruptions, the 1.55 Ma Ngaroma, 1 Ma Kidnappers, 349 ka Whakamaru, and ca. 50 ka Rotoiti events, plus a smaller-volume event from Taupō volcano at ca. 40 ka, highlighting the repeated impact of explosive eruptions on this region. Tephra studies in caves thus provide crucial information that can be used to constrain cave sediment and volcanic histories, vertebrate fossil chronologies, and cave system and landscape evolution.