Extreme block and boulder transport along a cliffed coastline (Calicoan Island, Philippines) during Super Typhoon Haiyan

Abstract

This paper presents data on block and boulder transport during Super Typhoon Haiyan along a 4.5km long, low (5-12m) cliffed coastline in Calicoan Island, Eastern Samar, Philippines. Wave runup exceeding 15.2m elevation drove thousands of limestone clasts, many of whichwith volumes up to ~83m 3strongly exceed maximum values stated in the literature to be possible from storms, up to ~280m inland. A few very large clasts (65-132m 3) were not transported by the waves. As a group, and along with transport reported in May et al. [2015] at a different location during Haiyan, these appear to be the largest blocks verified to have been transported by storm waves, and suggest that a re-evaluation of storm wave transport capability is necessary. Comparison of present results with a global database of storm boulder transport shows a masselevation envelope below which transport is observed and above which no transport observations exist. Extension of initiation of motion criteria to include non-rectangular cross-sections significantly reduced inferred velocities necessary for boulder transport during Haiyan, particularly for overturning boulders. Still, the potential range of velocities remained significant once coefficient uncertainty was considered. Lifting/joint-bounded velocity estimates at cliff edges were much larger than for other transport modes, and are difficult to reconcile: it is suggested that processes at cliff edges may be significantly more complex than can be accurately represented with these simple theories.

Occurrence of 1 ka-old corals on an uplifted reef terrace in west Luzon, Philippines: Implications for a prehistoric extreme wave event in the South China Sea region

“…While the 2013 Typhoon (TY) Haiyan (local name: Super Typhoon Yolanda) remains to be the deadliest typhoon in modern meteorologic records to hit the country, the 1881 Haiphong typhoon that devastated Vietnam is also reported to have severely damaged the Philippines leaving thousands of casualties [e.g., (Ribera et al 2008;); Table 4]. As the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone, TY Haiyan generated a surge of 5-6 m (Tajima et al 2014) and run-up as high as 15 m (Kennedy et al 2017). In a recent assessment of storm surge vulnerable areas in the Philippines, storm surges from historical typhoons that entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) were modeled using the characteristics of TY Haiyan (Lapidez et al 2015).…”

Coastal boulder deposit as evidence of an ocean‐wide prehistoric tsunami originated on the Atacama Desert coast (northern Chile)

“…Thus, tsunami waves were considered the most likely process for boulder field deposits (Nott, 2003a;Scheffers et al, 2009;Hoffmann et al, 2013;Scheffers & Kinis, 2014). Recently, several authors have highlighted that storm wave heights can be much greater than predicted by simple wave theory (May et al, 2015;Cox et al, 2016;Kennedy et al, 2017) and that hydrodynamic equations tend to underestimate the ability of these Sedimentology (2020) 67, 1505-1528 doi: 10.1111/sed.12570 waves to move large boulders (Cox et al, 2018). Due to these new results, it is important to establish multiple hypotheses that might explain boulder deposition, considering both the tectonic setting and the existing meteorological and oceanographic data of extreme storms, even in the proximities of active subduction zones such as the Chilean coasts.…”

Digital mapping of coastal boulders – high‐resolution data acquisition to infer past and recent transport dynamics

“…This observation is in line with a more narrow distribution limit of <300 m from a reef‐platform edge associated with storm‐wave transport in contrast to up to several times longer transport distances by strong tsunamis (Goto et al ., ). How boulder transport distances under storm‐wave conditions compare with those of high‐energy surf beat (May et al ., ; Kennedy et al ., ; Soria et al ., ) in the same location is not known.…”