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14C-Dated Charcoal and Sediment Drilling Cores as First Evidence of Holocene Tsunamis at the Southern Spanish Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Peter Becker-Heidmann*
Affiliation:
Institut für Bodenkunde, Universität Hamburg, Allende-Platz 2, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Klaus Reicherter
Affiliation:
FLG Neotektonik und Georisiken, Geowissenschaften, RWTH Aachen, Lochnerstr. 4-20, 52056 Aachen, Germany
Pablo G Silva
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geologia, Escuela Politécnica Superior de Ávila, Universidad de Salamanca, Hornos Caleros 50, 05003 Avila, Spain
*
Corresponding author. Email: p.becker-heidmann@ifb.uni-hamburg.de
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Abstract

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At 2 locations of the southern Spanish coast, we found indications for tsunamis induced by submarine earthquakes. Charcoal, which we sampled in 2 stratified, assumed tsunamigenic sediment (tsunamites) layers at the shore outside the ruins of the Roman city of Baelo Claudia, close to the Strait of Gibraltar (province of Cádiz), and radiocarbon dated, surprisingly turned out to be of identical age, about 465 BP. In the laguna of the Cabo de Gata (province of Almería), we found possible remnants of tsunamites in drilling cores deposited above organic sediments, 14C dated as 680 ± 30 BP.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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