Back to AGU's Ocean Sciences Meeting

By Sabine Wulf, Rebecca Boon*, Matthew Hornbach, Paul Mann, Will King*

Abstract
Tsunami are one of the major natural hazards in the Caribbean; recent studies reveal that they strongly affect the coastal environment of even remote sites like the Islands of Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire (Leeward Netherlands Antilles, Caribbean). Identifying paleo-tsunami events in geological records and differentiating these from storm deposits, however, remains a challenge. Here, we use sediment cores from distal coastal-marine and lacustrine sites to place better constraints on a known submarine slide that likely generated a substantial (>5 m) tsunami along the southwest coast of the Island of Curacao ca 14,000 years ago. A detailed core description, magnetic susceptibility and grain size measurements revealed a succession of storm deposits in marine sediments in the partial open bay areas, and tsunami deposits in lacustrine sediments in the rather storm protected Lagoon. The results of these studies offer new insight into timing and discriminating between distal paleo-tsunami and storm deposits in a paleoclimate context.