Abstract The record of Icelandic volcanic events in Holocene marine sediments off SE Greenland provides evidence for the frequency and timing of atmospheric tephra plume dispersal from Iceland towards Greenland. Geochemistry of tephra abundance peaks from two SE Greenland shelf cores: MD99-2322 and JM96-1215-2GC are compared with core MD99-2269, north Iceland shelf, to evaluate the dispersal direction of Icelandic eruptions. Glass shard counts (106–1000 µm) in MD99-2322 revealed 16 distinct cryptotephra peaks. Geochemical analyses of eight cryptotephra peaks in MD99-2322 and two in JM96-1215 indicate sources in the volcanic systems of Iceland and Alaska. A tephra layer matching in geochemistry and stratigraphy to the c. 3600 BP eruption of the Aniakchak Volcano in the Aleutian Islands was identified in JM96-1215/2GC. The Settlement Tephra (AD 871±2) and Hekla B (H-B) were identified in MD99-2322. A new marker horizon, Katla EG-6.73, was found in both SE Greenland cores. Three basaltic peaks between 9.9 and 10.4 cal kyr BP, exhibit major-element geochemistry indistinguishable from the c. 10.2 kyr Saksunarvatn tephra. These layers represent 3 out of≥seven westward and northward-dispersed Grímsvötn layers found on the SE Greenland shelf and the north Iceland shelf between 9.9 and 10.4 cal kyr BP. supplementary material: a list of all analyses performed for this study is available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18715

Abstract Two volcanoes in Marie Byrd Land, Mount Berlin and Mount Takahe, can be considered active, and a third, Mount Waesche, may be as well; although the chronology of activity is less well constrained. The records of explosive activity of these three volcanoes is well represented through deposits on the volcano flanks and tephra layers found in blue ice areas, as well as by the presence of cryptotephra layers found in West and East Antarctic ice cores. Records of effusive volcanism are found on the volcano flanks but some deposits may be obscured by pervasive glacerization of the edifices. Based on a compilation of tephra depths–ages in ice cores, the activity patterns of Mount Takahe and Mount Berlin are dramatically different. Mount Takahe has erupted infrequently over the past 100 kyr. Mount Berlin, by contrast, has erupted episodically during this time interval, with the number of eruptions being dramatically higher in the time interval between c. 32 and 18 ka. Integration of the Mount Berlin tephra record from ice cores and blue ice areas over a 500 kyr time span reveals a pattern of geochemical evolution related to small batches of partial melt being progressively removed from a single source underlying Mount Berlin.