The role of porosity in discriminating between tsunami and hurricane emplacement of boulders — A case study from the Lesser Antilles, southern Caribbean

Spiske, Michaela; Böröcz, Zoltán; Bahlburg, Heinrich

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.01.030

Cited by 91 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Once entrained into the rising andesitic magma, the volatiles will react with one another and the rock in response to decreasing temperatures and pressures to produce the variety of gases encountered at the surface (and in fluid inclusions) in volcanic and geothermal areas. Urbina N. E., Sruoga P. and Malvicini L. 1997 Coastal boulder deposits are a subject of controversial discussions (Hearty, 1997;Bourrouilh-Le Jan, 1998;Scheffers & Kelletat, 2003;Spiske et al, 2008). Without doubt, these sedimentary features are a consequence of high-energy wave impacts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This limits precise calculations of wave heights and hampers a clear distinction between storm, hurricane and tsunami origin. Our study (Spiske et al, 2008) uses Archimedean and optical 3D-scanning measurements for the determination of porosities and bulk densities of reef and coral limestone boulders from the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao (ABC Islands, Netherlands Antilles). Due to the high porosities (up to 68%) of the enclosed coral species, the weights of the reef rock boulders are as low as 20% of previously calculated values.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

International Lateinamerika-Kolloquium 2009

Möller-McNett¹

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

International Lateinamerika-Kolloquium 2009

Möller-McNett¹

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…2a, b) may have been too large to be transported further up-beach by the storm waves (e.g., Oak, 1984). These boulders are larger than the material in the ridge and may be relicts of a previous event of higher wave energy, such as a tsunami (e.g., Morton et al, 2008;Spiske et al, 2008). Such a tsunami event that predates a major historical storm on Anegada may also have provided a large quantity of loose clasts onshore and in shallow marine settings which were subsequently available for storm remobilization or reorganization.…”

Section: Implications Given By Clast Characteristics and Originmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The clasts that rest on top of the material are either smaller clasts of the lower part of the ridge or exceptionally light clasts (e.g. serpulite rock slab with a very low density; see Spiske et al, 2008), hence easy to be moved by less energetic storm waves during smaller storms compared with the waves being responsible for the development of the ridge itself. These smaller storm waves can also be capable of washing the remaining sand out of the ridge and back into the sea (e.g., Lorang, 2000;Morton et al, 2008).…”

Section: Post-depositional Reworking Of the Ridgementioning

confidence: 99%

A coral-rubble ridge as evidence for hurricane overwash, Anegada (British Virgin Islands)

Spiske¹,

Halley

2014

Adv. Geosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.A coral-rubble ridge fringes part of the north shore of Anegada, a low-lying island in the northern Caribbean. Both historical reports and the geological record underline its vulnerability to tsunami and hurricanes. In this study we document the sedimentary characteristics of a coral-rubble ridge, which extends discontinuously along 1.5-1.8 km of chiefly north-facing shores at Soldier Wash. The ridge is less distinctive and appears only in patches along the west-facing shoreline at Windless Bight, where the wave regime is calmer. It is located ca. 8 m from the fair-weather shore, has a maximum width of 15 m and a maximum thickness of 0.8 m. The lower seaward-facing slope of the ridge is relatively flat, probably due to successive reworking, whereas the upper seaward slope is steep and partly displays avalanching faces. The landward flank is gently sloping and terminates abruptly. The ridge is mainly composed of well-rounded, encrusted and bored coral rubble (average diameter of 16 cm) that has been reworked in the shallow marine environment prior to transport. Only a few pieces of angular beach rock and karstified Pleistocene limestone are incorporated. The components build a clast-supported framework. No sand is present in the interstices. Imbrication of flat clasts indicates a deposition during landward bed load transport. The ridge morphology, composition and related hydrodynamic conditions during its emplacement are typical for coral-rubble ridges deposited by hurricane-induced storm surges. In comparison, nearby evidence for tsunami inundation is very different because the tsunami-transported coral boulders on Anegada are much bigger (2 m) than the biggest components in the ridge, they are deposited much farther inland (up to 1.5 km), and the corals seem to have been freshly broken out of the reef by the tsunami.The age of the ridge is difficult to estimate. The dark grey surface of the ridge is caused by bioweathering by endolithic organisms that takes tens of years and may give a very rough estimate of the minimum age of the ridge.Storms and related surges that built the ridge were likely stronger than 2010 hurricane Earl, which attained category 4 north of the island. Earl was able to slightly rework the lower seaward part of the ridge, but transported only few and smaller pieces of coral rubble and sand onshore. Therefore, the coral-rubble ridge found at the north shore of Anegada may imply that the island is vulnerable to hurricane-induced surges of greater impact (in relation to storm path and intensity) compared with the any of the recently documented storms which were only able to rework the ridge.

show abstract

“…Geologic proxies for tropical cyclones include negative 6180 anomalies in speleothems and tree rings Malmquist, 1997;, storminduced beach ridges and scarps (Buynevich et al, 2007;), cyclone-transported boulder deposits (Scheffers and Scheffers, 2006;Spiske et al, 2008;Suzuki et al, 2008;Yu et al, 2004), preserved offshore beds and bedforms (Duke, 1985;Ito et al, 2001;Keen et al, 2004;Keen et al, 2006), and sedimentary archives of freshwater flooding events (Besonen et al, 2008;Grossman, 2001). In addition, overwash deposits preserved within backbarrier beach environments can be a particularly effective proxy of long-term tropical cyclone variability Emery, 1969;Liu and Fearn, 1993;Liu and Fearn, 2000;Woodruff et al, 2008b), during intervals when coastal morphology has remained relatively stable (Donnelly and Giosan, 2008;Lambert et al, 2003;Otvos, 1999;Otvos, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical cyclones within the sedimentary record : analyzing overwash deposition from event to millennial timescales

Woodruff¹

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tropical cyclone activity over the last 5000 years is investigated using overwash sediments from coastal lagoons on the islands of Vieques, Puerto Rico and Koshikijima, Japan. A simple sediment transport model can reproduce the landward fining deposits observed at Vieques, and reveals that although the record exhibits centennial-tomillennial changes in hurricane overwash frequency, the magnitude of these flooding events has remained relatively constant. Stochastic simulations of hurricane overwash show that breaks in activity at Vieques are extremely long and unlikely to occur under the current hurricane climatology and the present barrier morphology. Periods of less frequent hurricane deposition at Vieques are contemporaneous with intervals of increased El Nifio occurrences and reduced precipitation in West Africa, suggesting a dominant influence by these two climatic phenomena. Hiatuses in overwash activity between 3600-to-2500 and 1000-500 years ago are longer than what is generated by overwash simulations under a constant El Niflo-like state, indicating that mechanisms in addition to variability in the El Nifio/Southern Oscillation are required to completely produce the overwash variability at Vieques. Periods of low overwash activity at Vieques are concurrent with increased overwash activity at Kamikoshiki and may indicate a correspondence between tropical cyclone activity in the western Northern Atlantic and the western North Pacific.Thesis Supervisor:Jeffrey P. Donnelly Title:Associate Scientist, Department of Geology and Geophysics Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution AcknowledgementsAbove all, I would like to thank my advisor Jeff Donnelly. I have been extremely fortunate to have had Jeff as an advisor, and am indebted to him for his unwavering support over the course of my dissertation, both professionally and personally. I admire Jeff greatly for his scientific enthusiasm, insight, and generosity, and will always consider him a strong role model throughout my academic career. I am also grateful to Rocky Geyer, whose mentorship extends back over 14 years to when he first took me on as a Summer Student Fellow at WHOI. Rocky's help and guidance since I arrived in Woods Hole has been invaluable and I sincerely appreciate everything he has done for me. I would also like to thank David Mohrig who had been generous with both his ideas and expertise, especially with respect to the inverse modeling work described in Chapter 3, which builds upon previously unpublished research of his. Most of Chapter 4 would not have been possible without the help of Kerry Emanuel who has been extremely gracious both with his time, knowledge, and resources. I also thank Delia Oppo whose door was always open to me, and Rob Evans for agreeing to act as the chair of my defense.In addition to my committee, I would like to thank both the past and present members of the Coastal Systems Group at WHOI who I have enjoyed collaborating with immensely: Andrew Ashton, Katie Boldt, Ilya Buynevich, Zion Klos, Liviu Giosan, Maya Gomes...

show abstract

The role of porosity in discriminating between tsunami and hurricane emplacement of boulders — A case study from the Lesser Antilles, southern Caribbean

Cited by 91 publications

References 32 publications

International Lateinamerika-Kolloquium 2009

International Lateinamerika-Kolloquium 2009

A coral-rubble ridge as evidence for hurricane overwash, Anegada (British Virgin Islands)

Tropical cyclones within the sedimentary record : analyzing overwash deposition from event to millennial timescales

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About