Abstract. The dating of the cores we drilled from the Gallipoli terrace in the Gulf of Taranto (Ionian Sea), previously obtained by tephroanalysis, is checked by applying a method to objectively recognize volcanic events. This automatic statistical procedure allows identifying pulse-like features in a series and evaluating quantitatively the confidence level at which the significant peaks are detected. We applied it to the 2000-years-long pyroxenes series of the GT89-3 core, on which the dating is based. The method confirms the dating previously performed by detecting at a high confidence level the peaks originally used and indicates a few possible undocumented eruptions. Moreover, a spectral analysis, focussed on the long-term variability of the pyroxenes series and performed by several advanced methods, reveals that the volcanic pulses are superimposed to a millennial trend and a 400 years oscillation.