An Integrated Late Pleistocene to Holocene Tephrostratigraphic Framework for South‐East and East Asia

Volcanic ash has been widely used as unique independent marker horizons for dating and synchronizing paleoenvironments and archeological records. Here, we report a series of key widespread late Pleistocene to Holocene tephras horizons from a lake sequence in southern China that have significant potential for dating and synchronizing paleoenvironmental records from East Asia. Translatitudinal paleoclimatological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological correlations from the tropical Philippines, mainland China, and midlatitude Japan are achievable through these extensively distributed tephras, including synthetic studies of the Younger Dryas and mid‐Holocene climate events. Additionally, we establish refined ages for four pre‐1991 Pinatubo eruptions and date three late Pleistocene Luzon eruptions based on the lake sequence age model, which will facilitate future studies of tropical volcanic eruptions’ forcing of climate change. Our results highlight the volcanic hazards around densely populated East Asia, and bring solutions to resolving dating uncertainty in the synchronization of rapid climate events across the region. Plain Language Summary Tephra layers have been hailed as valuable independent age‐equivalent marker layers for precisely correlating archives of past environmental change. Japan and south‐east Asia have the most active land‐based volcanoes on Earth, and ash from their eruptions can be traced as far as the polar ice cores. However, the volcanic histories and products from the regions are poorly constrained, limiting the ability to recognize the eruptions' wider climate and societal impacts, and to use far‐traveled ash as dating horizons. In this study, we investigated cryptotephra (volcanic ash particles that are invisible to the naked eye) in a lake sequence from southern China. Cryptotephra from the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea was identified in the lake sediment. The discovery of these tephras in southern China significantly extends the volcanic ash distributions of several known late Pleistocene to Holocene eruptions from this region, and indicates that these prehistoric eruptions may have frequently impacted on some of the most densely populated parts of East Asia. These extensively distributed tephras will provide excellent dating horizons for future climate studies in this region. Key Points We present the first high‐resolution late Pleistocene to Holocene cryptotephra sequence in mainland China A series of key widespread late Pl