Volcanic ash bands in the Frontier Mountain and Lichen Hills blue-ice fields, northern Victoria Land

Dust bands in the blue-ice of the Frontier Mountain meteorite trap (norther n Victoria Land, Antarctica) were previously reported as upthrust basal deb ris. Four of them have now been sampled at Frontier Mountain and Lichen Hil ls. The absence of local rocks and sedimentary fragments, the ubiquitous ab undant volcanic glass with no evidence for abrasion, the igneous minerals, the chemical compositions of glass and minerals and the bulk chemical compo sitions indicate that they are volcanic ash bands (tephra) and not glacial debris. Although hardly distinguishable in the field, the different volcani c ash bands are discriminated using mineralogical and chemical data, as wel l as particle size, abundance and vesicularity of glass. Chronological cons traints, particle size and chemical compositions localize the source for th e Frontier Mountain and Lichen Hills tephra within the recent activity of t he Mount Melbourne Volcanic Province in northern Victoria Land; possible em ission centres are the Pleiades (40 +/- 50 ka to 3 +/- 14 ka) and/or Mount Rittmann (3.97 Ma to present).