Radiocarbon dating versus volcanic event stratigraphy: age modelling of Quaternary marine sequences in the south Tyrrhenian sea

study we integrate stratigraphic data obtained from five gravity cores acquired off the Pozzuoli Bay, in order to provide new insights into the explosive volcanic activity of Campi Flegrei, Ischia, Procida and Somma-Vesuvius) during the latest Quaternary. The Campi Flegrei district, in particular, is an active volcanic area that covers some 200 km2 of the coastal zone of SW Italy, a large part of which develops off the Pozzuoli Bay.The area has been active at least since ~80 ka BP, and is structurally dominated by a collapse caldera, 6 km in diameter, associated with the eruption of the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT), a 40 km3 Dense Rock Equivalent (DRE) ignimbrite dated at ca 15 ka BP, that largely covered the district now occupied by the city of Naples, the Campi Flegrei and a large part of the continental shelf off the Pozzuoli Bay. Other several Plinian and sub-Plianian eruptions occurred in this region during the latest Quaternary. The results of our study confirm that the use of AMS 14C dating on marine sediments coupled with the tephrostratigraphic approach is a powerful tool to chronologically constrain marine archives and to reconstruct in detail the Late Quaternary volcanic activity at the eastern Tyrrhenian margin.