Sedimentary Coastal Zones from High to Low Latitudes: Similarities and Differences
We live in a world where the loss of sea ice and thawing of coastal grounds in the north, and renewed marine transgression and an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events globally, are becoming commonplace. This volume presents a timely examination of coasts, the geological environment at particular risk as global warming brings on this new reality. In 23 papers, low lying, mainly siliciclastic coasts are reviewed, described and analysed under a variety of climates in quasi-stable tectonic settings along passive, trailing-continental edges from Polar Regions to the Tropics. Examples include coasts of the Arctic seas, temperate to tropical eastern shores of the Americas, western Portugal, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, South Africa and Australia. The entire coastal zone is considered, ranging from geophysical processes and products to biological entities including the adaption of inhabitants of various climatic zones. Knowledge of the state of the coasts now, and how the coastal plain has evolved since the Late Pleistocene, is crucial for any realistic planning for the future.
Potential and limits of combining studies of coarse- and fine-grained sediments for the coastal event history of a Caribbean carbonate environment
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Published:January 01, 2014
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Anja M. Scheffers, Max Engel, S. Matthias May, Sander R. Scheffers, Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Elke Hänssler, Katharina Kennedy, Dieter Kelletat, Helmut Brückner, Andreas Vött, Gerhard Schellmann, Frank Schäbitz, Ulrich Radtke, Brigitte Sommer, Timo Willershäuser, Thomas Felis, 2014. "Potential and limits of combining studies of coarse- and fine-grained sediments for the coastal event history of a Caribbean carbonate environment", Sedimentary Coastal Zones from High to Low Latitudes: Similarities and Differences, I. P. Martini, H. R. Wanless
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Abstract
The coastal deposits of Bonaire, Leeward Antilles, are among the most studied archives for extreme-wave events (EWEs) in the Caribbean. Here we present more than 400 electron spin resonance (ESR) and radiocarbon data on coarse-clast deposits from Bonaire’s eastern and western coasts. The chronological data are compared to the occurrence and age of fine-grained extreme-wave deposits detected in lagoons and floodplains. Both approaches are aimed at the identification of EWEs, the differentiation between extraordinary storms and tsunamis, improving reconstructions of the coastal evolution, and establishing a geochronological framework for the events. Although the combination of different methods and archives contributes to a better understanding of the interplay of coastal and archive-related processes, insufficient separation, superimposition or burying of coarse-clast deposits and restricted dating accuracy limit the use of both fine-grained and coarse-clast geoarchives to unravel decadal- to centennial-scale events. At several locations, distinct landforms are attributed to different coastal flooding events interpreted to be of tsunamigenic origin. Coastal landforms on the western coast have significantly been influenced by (sub)-recent hurricanes, indicating that formation of the coarse-clast deposits on the eastern coast is likely to be related to past events of higher energy.
The entire dataset of ESR and 14C dating results used in this paper is available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18637.
