Age and petrology of the Late-Pleistocene brown tuffs on Lipari, Italy

Late-Pleistocene volcanic products on Lipari consist mainly of pyroclastic surge deposits (Monte Guardia sequence) and fine-grained brown tuffs. Radiometric age determination on carbon from thin soils at the top of the tuffs indicate that they have several ages of emplacement ranging from more than 35,000 to 16,800 years ago. Chemical and microprobe data on glass and mineral fragments from these tuffs show that they belong to a shoshonite or high-K series. This composition is compatible with an origin related to the magma system of Vulcano, but not with the magma system on Lipari. These tuffs have a widespread distribution on several of the Aeolian islands as well as on the northern part of Sicily. They have features typical of ash-flow tuffs of hydromagmatic origin. We propose that they originated from submarine eruptions from the Vulcanello vent before this volcano emerged above sea level.