Abstract
Tsunami deposits are provisionally distinguished in the field on the basis of anomalous sand horizons, fining-up and fining-landward, coupled with organic-rich, fragmented ‘backwash’ sediments. In this paper, micromorphological features of a sediment sequence previously interpreted as being of tsunami origin are described. These characteristics are shown to be consistent with the macro-scale features used elsewhere, but show additional details not seen in standard stratigraphies, including possible evidence for individual waves, possibly wave-magnitude progression, organic fragment alignment and intraclast microstructures. Although replication and more complete studies are needed, this analysis confirms the identification of a tsunami in Willapa Bay in ca.1700 AD, while demonstrating a widely applicable technique for confirming or refuting possible tsunami deposits.
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Kilfeather, A.A., Blackford, J.J., van der Meer, J.J.M. (2007). Micromorphological Analysis of Coastal Sediments from Willapa Bay, Washington, USA: A Technique for Analysing Inferred Tsunami Deposits. In: Satake, K., Okal, E.A., Borrero, J.C. (eds) Tsunami and Its Hazards in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Pageoph Topical Volumes. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8364-0_13
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