A 4500-year record of emergence events at Onnetoh, Hokkaido, northern Japan, reconstructed using plant macrofossils

Plant macrofossils (vascular plants and mosses) document six episodic emergence events during the late Holocene at Onnetoh, eastern Hokkaido, northern Japan. Four events were dated by the AMS radiocarbon method to 4240–3910, 3640–3360, 1520–1260, and 790–660 cal year BP, and another was dated by liquid scintillation spectrometry of radiocarbon to 2750–2430 cal year BP. We attribute the three most recent and the two oldest periods of emergence events identified in this study to uplift associated with unusually large interplate earthquakes along the southwestern part of the Kuril subduction zone.