Four monogenetic Holocene lava flows located within the Michoacán-Guanajuato Volcanic Field, Mexico, were sampled for paleomagnetic dating. These flows (namely, El Infiernillo, Malpaís Las Víboras, El Capaxtiro, and Malpaís Prieto) are within the heartland of the pre-Hispanic Tarascan civilization and were inhabited repeatedly since at least 100 BC, but no relation with the volcanic evolution has been proposed so far. The stratigraphically oldest lava flow, El Infiernillo, has a radiocarbon age of 3200 ± 30 yr BP (cal. 1525-1420 BC), and it was used to validate the method. Using full-vector paleomagnetic data from three sites as input for paleomagnetic dating applying the global paleosecular variation model SHA.DIF.14k, an age range of 1500-1370 BC was obtained. Two age ranges of 1340-1230 and 1030-940 BC were obtained for Malpaís Las Víboras. A younger age range of 200-80 BC was obtained for the Capaxtiro lava flow and, finally, the Malpaís Prieto lava flow erupted within the range of AD 830-960. The human occupation history of these flows started around 100 BC during the late Pre-Classic, probably shortly after the Capaxtiro eruption. Archeological records indicate an abandonment of the entire area around AD 900 (late to terminal Classic), which coincides with the paleomagnetic age of the Malpaís Prieto eruption. Interestingly, this area was heavily repopulated again only few hundred years later around AD 1250 and belongs to the core region in which the Tarascan civilization has its roots. The eruption recurrence interval of roughly 1000 years indicates that a new monogenetic eruption should be expected to occur again in the future and that this area deserves to be studied in greater detail with particular emphasis on the impact of past eruptions. This could help to better evaluate volcanic hazards and design preparedness strategies to minimize the impact of a future eruption.
The Matuyama-Brunhes reversal (MBR) is the most recent magnetic field reversal, and characterizing it globally is important to understand the geodynamo processes in Earth's core. Also, it is an essential chronozone boundary of the Quaternary magnetic polarity reversal timescale (Cande & Kent, 1995;Channell et al., 2020;Cohen & Gibbard, 2019;Ogg, 2020;Singer, 2014), therefore identifying its age is crucial for enhancing marine stratigraphy, correlation of rock sequences, and refining our understanding of global climate changes (Bassinot et al., 1994), among other applications. Marine and lacustrine sediments, lava flows, and ice cores are commonly used for MBR investigation. Despite the relative abundance of these data, different ages have been proposed for the MBR over the last decades: 730 ka (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.