Abstract
The coastline of Taveuni Island in the southwest Pacific was struck by a category-4 tropical cyclone in March 2010. Post-storm field investigations of the coastal geomorphic impacts concentrated on an area in central Taveuni where protected fringing reefs and coastlines form part of the Bouma National Heritage Park. Here, a range of cyclone constructional imprints were found to have supplemented existing coastal sediments. Fresh coral boulders strewn across reef platforms indicate that TC Tomas had sufficient power to deliver new coral blocks, but that this material comprises a relatively minor component of pre-existing boulder fields. Comparison between the dimensions of fresh and older blocks reveals that unknown earlier events (storms or tsunamis) produced much larger debris and therefore presumably generated more energetic flow velocities across the fringing reefs than TC Tomas did. Analysis of calcarenite slabs quarried from in situ beachrock exposures was also particularly useful for calculating surging flow velocities at the shoreline.
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- 1.
Australian intensity scale for tropical cyclones in the south west Pacific, which is used by both the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS).
- 2.
Fiji Standard Time (FST) is 12 h ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). All subsequent times and dates are FST.
- 3.
Wind speeds refer to sustained winds over 10 min averaging times.
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Terry, J.P., Lau, A.Y.A., Etienne, S. (2013). Case Study: Coral Boulder Fields on Taveuni Island Coasts, Fiji. In: Reef-Platform Coral Boulders. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-33-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-33-8_5
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