Prograded foredunes of Western Australia's macro‐tidal coast – implications for Holocene sea‐level change and high‐energy wave impacts

The Holocene evolution of the Canning Coast of Western Australia has largely been overlooked so far mainly due to its remoteness and low population density. We report on new data from a sequence of foredunes inside the macro‐tidal Admiral Bay, 110 km southwest of Broome. Based on sediment cores, differential global positioning system (dGPS)‐based elevation transects, and stratigraphical analyses on outcrops of the relict foredunes, we aim at reconstructing Holocene coastal changes and relative sea levels (RSLs), as well as identifying and dating imprints of extreme‐wave events. Sedimentary analyses comprise the documentation of bedding structures, foraminiferal content and macrofaunal remains, grain size distribution, and organic matter. The chronological framework is based on 26 carbon‐14 accelerator mass spectrometry (¹⁴C‐AMS) datings. Marine flooding of the pre‐Holocene surface landward of the 2.5 km‐wide foredune barriers occurred 7400–7200 cal bp , when mangroves colonized the area. After only 200–400 years, a high‐energy inter‐tidal environment established and prevailed until c. 4000 cal bp , before turning into the present supralittoral mudflat. During that time, coastal regression led to beach progradation and the formation of aligned foredunes. Drivers of progradation were a stable RSL or gradual RSL fall after the mid‐Holocene and a positive sand budget. The foredunes overlie upper beach deposits located up to >2 m above the present upper beach level and provide evidence for a higher mid‐Holocene RSL. Discontinuous layers of coarse shells and sand are intercalated in the foredunes, indicating massive coastal flooding events. One such layer was traced over three dune ridges and dated to c. 1700–1550 cal bp . However, it seems that most tropical cyclones induce net erosion rather than deposition at aligned foredunes and thus, they are only suitable for reconstructing temporal variability if erosional features or sedimentation reliably tied to these events can be identified and dated accurately. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tropical cyclones,global climate change and the role of Quaternary studies

The number and types of late Quaternary records of tropical cyclones (TCs) and temperate storms have been increasing globally over the past 10 years. There are now numerous such records for the Atlantic Ocean (USA) and Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, South Pacific Ocean, and a fewer number from the northwest Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. The most obvious characteristic of these records is that many reveal extended alternating periods of greater and lesser TC activity over the past 6000 years. The length of these phases of relative inactivity and greater activity depends on the chronological resolution of the record, with the coarser‐resolution ones displaying multi‐century to millennial‐scale episodes and the high‐resolution records displaying decadal to centennial‐scale oscillations. In several instances the likely causes of these alternating periods of TC behaviour have been attributed to different phases of climate when El Niños and La Niñas dominated or to longer‐term variations in sea surface temperatures and possibly solar forcing. The picture emerging from these records is that TC behaviour is not entirely stochastic over the long term and that any simulations of long‐term TC behaviour need to account for these climatic influences. Incorporation of these observations, and the many more needed, is important for understanding the future behaviour of TCs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coarse clast ridge sequences as suitable archives for past storm events? Case study on the Houtman Abrolhos,Western Australia

Prehistoric storm records are relatively scarce in most parts of the world. This article presents storm records derived from coral rubble‐based geological archives of the Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago located off the west coast of Australia, where the southernmost coral reefs of the Indian Ocean are found. Winter storm swell from the circum‐Antarctic ‘Brave Westerlies’, as well as tropical cyclone waves, have left numerous ridge systems on dozens of islands of the archipelago, all composed of coral rubble from adjacent reefs. At three islands, seven ridge systems were dated by three different methods: U‐series (68 dates), radiocarbon (64 dates), electron spin resonance (7 dates); 139 radiometric dates span the last 5500 years of the Holocene. In contrast to the geomorphological interpretation, the age sequences show ‘inversions’, hiatuses and different ages for the same ridge, all pointing to complicated ridge formation processes. Time gaps, some exceeding 1000 years, are interpreted as phases of erosion and not as phases without storm activity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Traces of historical tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the Ashburton Delta (north‐west Australia)

Although the north‐western coast of Western Australia is highly vulnerable to tropical cyclones and tsunamis, little is known about the geological imprint of historic and prehistoric extreme wave events in this particular area. Despite a number of site‐specific difficulties such as post‐depositional changes and the preservation potential of event deposits, both tropical cyclones and tsunamis may be inferred from the geomorphology and the stratigraphy of beach ridge sequences, washover fans and coastal lagoons or marshes. A further challenge is the differentiation between tsunami and storm deposits in the geological record, particularly where modern deposits and/or historical reports on the event are not available. This study presents a high‐resolution sedimentary record of washover events from the Ashburton River delta (Western Australia) spanning approximately the last 150 years. A detailed characterization of event deposits is provided, and a robust chronostratigraphy for the investigated washover sequence is established based on multi‐proxy sediment analyses and optically stimulated luminescence dating. Combining sedimentological, geochemical and high‐resolution optically stimulated luminescence data, event layers are assigned to known historical events and tropical cyclone deposits are separated from tsunami deposits. For the first time, the 1883 Krakatoa and 1977 Sumba tsunamis are inferred from sedimentary records of the north‐western part of Western Australia. It is demonstrated that optically stimulated luminescence applied in coastal sedimentary archives with favourable luminescence characteristics can provide accurate chronostratigraphies even on a decadal timescale. The results contribute to the data pool of tropical cyclone and tsunami deposits in Holocene stratigraphies; however, they also demonstrate how short‐lived sediment archives may be in dynamic sedimentary environments.     

Modern and historical tropical cyclone and tsunami deposits at the coast of Myanmar: Implications for their identification and preservation in the geological record

The catastrophic storm surge of tropical cyclone Nargis in May 2008 demonstrated Myanmar's exposure to coastal flooding. The investigation of sediments left by tropical cyclone Nargis and its predecessors is an important contribution to prepare for the impact of future tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the region, because they may extend the database for long-term hazard assessment beyond the relatively short instrumental and historical record. This study, for the first time, presents deposits of modern and historical tropical cyclones and tsunamis from the coast of Myanmar. The aim is to establish regional sedimentary characteristics that may help to identify and discriminate cyclones and tsunamis in the geological record, and to document post-depositional changes due to tropical weathering in the first years after deposition. These findings if used to interpret older deposits will extend the existing instrumental record of flooding events in Myanmar. Evaluating deposits that can be related to specific events, such as the 2006 tropical cyclone Mala and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, indicates similar sedimentary characteristics for both types of sediments. Landward thinning and fining trends, littoral sediment sources and sharp lower contacts allow for the differentiation from underlying deposits, while discrimination between tropical cyclone and tsunami origin is challenging based on the applied methods. The modern analogues also demonstrate a rather low preservation potential of the sand sheets due to carbonate dissolution, formation of organic top soils, and coastal erosion. However, in coastal depressions sand sheets of sufficient thickness (>10 cm) may be preserved where the shoreline is prograding or stable. In the most seaward swale of a beach-ridge plain at the Rakhine coast, two sand sheets have been identified in addition to the deposits of 2006 tropical cyclone Mala. Based on a combination of optically stimulated luminescence, radiocarbon and ¹³⁷Cs dating, the younger sand layer is related to 1982 tropical cyclone Gwa, while the older sand layer is most probably the result of an event that took place prior to 1950. Comparison with historical records indicates that the archive is only sensitive to tropical cyclones of category 4 (or higher) with landfall directly in or a few tens of kilometres north of the study area. While the presented tropical cyclone records are restricted to the last 100 years, optically stimulated luminescence ages of the beach ridges indicate that the swales landward of the one investigated in this study might provide tropical cyclone information for at least the past 700 years.