40 Ar/ 39 Ar radiometric dating to constrain the volcanic stratigraphy: The Mt. Etna methodological case.

Abstract

Although ~50 radiometric age analyses have been performed on Etna, and there are many historical references, these are not enough to temporally constrain the geo- logical evolution of the volcano. In particular, a new stratigraphic framework based on lithostratigraphic and unconformity-bounded units has pointed out the presence of some stratigraphic uncertainty that can be resolved only with radiometric dating. For this reason, a dating project applying the 40 Ar/ 39 Ar incremental heating technique started in 2002. The results obtained improve our understanding and provide con- straints for Etna’s geological evolution; in addition, they show that the applied tech- nique is very useful for dating young basalts and quantifying the hiatus represented by unconformities, as well as for understanding their meaning.