Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:07:42.011Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stratigraphic and Microfossil Evidence for Late Holocene Tsunamis at Swantown Marsh, Whidbey Island, Washington

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Harry Williams  and
Ian Hutchinson
Harry Williams
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, 76203
Ian Hutchinson
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5A 1S6
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Four muddy sand sheets occur within a tidal marsh peat at Swantown on the west coast of Whidbey Island, Washington. The two largest sand sheets pinch out about 100 m inland and became thinner and finer-grained landward. All four sand sheets contain marine microfossils and have internal stratification. They record repeated inundation of the marsh over a short time period by distinct pulses of sediment-laden ocean water, consistent with deposition by a tsunami wave train. The layers have been radiocarbon-dated to 1160–1350, 1400–1700, 1810–2060, and 1830–2120 cal yr B.P. The overlap in age between the two youngest layers and inferred great earthquake events at the Cascadia plate boundary, some 250 km to the west, suggests they were emplaced by tsunamis from this source area. The two older layers do not correlate with plate-boundary events. They may be products of tsunamis caused by earthquakes on local faults in the Strait of Juan de Fuca or by submarine landslides in this area.

Keywords

tsunamicascadia subduction zonepaleoseismologytidal marsh
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , September 2000 , pp. 218 - 227
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atwater, B.F., Yamaguchi, D.K.(1991). Sudden, probably coseismic submergence of Holocene trees and grass in coastal Washington State. Geology, 19, 706–709.Google Scholar
Atwater, B.F., Moore, A.L.(1992). A tsunami 1000 years ago in Puget Sound, Washington. Science, 258, 1614–1617.Google Scholar
Atwater, B. F., E., Hemphill-Haley(1997). Recurrence Intervals for Great Earthquakes of the Past 3,500 Years at Northwestern Willapa Bay. Washington.,USGS Professional Paper 1576, 108, pp.Google Scholar
Benson, B.E., Grimm, K.A., Clague, J.J.(1997). Tsunami deposits beneath tidal marshes on Northwestern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Quaternary Research, 48, 192–203.Google Scholar
Bobrowsky, P.T., Clague, J.J.. Neotectonic investigations on western Vancouver Island, British Columbia (92F/4). (1991). Geological Fieldwork 1990. p. 307–313.Google Scholar
Bourgeois, J., Reinhart, M.A.(1989). Onshore erosion and deposition by the 1960 tsunami at the Rio Lingue estuary, south-central Chile. EOS (Transactions of the American Geophysical Union), 70, 1331 Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. (1998). Probability and dating. Radiocarbon, 40, 461–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucknam, R.C., Hemphill-Haley, E., Leopold, E.B.(1992). Abrupt uplift within the past 1700 years at southern Puget Sound, Washington. Science, 258, 1611–1614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clague, J. J. Compiler,(1996). Paleoseismology and Seismic Hazards, Southwestern British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada,Bulletin 494.,88, pp.Google Scholar
Clague, J.J., Bobrowsky, P.T.(1994). Tsunami deposits beneath tidal marshes on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 106, 1293–1303.Google Scholar
Clague, J.J., Bobrowsky, P.T., Hamilton, T.S.(1994). A sand sheet deposited by the 1964 Alaska Tsunami at Port Alberni, British Columbia. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 38, 413–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clague, J.J., Naesgaard, E., Nelson, A.R.(1997). Age and significance of earthquake-induced liquefaction near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 34, 53–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clague, J.J., Hutchinson, I., Mathewes, R.W., Patterson, R.T.(1998). Evidence for two late Holocene tsunamis at Catala Lake, British Columbia. Journal of Coastal Research, 15, 45–60.Google Scholar
Darienzo, M.E., Peterson, C.D.(1990). Episodic tectonic subsidence of late Holocene salt marshes, northern Oregon central Cascadia margin. Tectonics, 9, 1–22.Google Scholar
Davis, R.A., Knowles, S.C., Bland, M.J.(1989). Role of hurricanes in the Holocene stratigraphy of estuaries: Examples from the Gulf Coast of Florida. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 59, 1052–1061.Google Scholar
Dawson, A.G., Shi, S., Dawson, S., Takahashi, T., Shuto, N.(1996). Coastal sedimentation associated with the June 2nd and 3rd, 1994 tsunami in Rajegwesti, Java. Quaternary Science Reviews, 15, 901–912.Google Scholar
Easterbrook, D.J. (1969). Pleistocene chronology of the Puget Lowland and San Juan Islands, Washington. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 80, 2273–2286.Google Scholar
Goodbred, S.L., Hine, A.C.(1995). Coastal storm deposition: Salt marsh response to a severe extratropical storm, March 1993, west-central Florida. Geology, 23, 679–682.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, I., Clague, J.J., Mathewes, R.W.(1997). Reconstructing the tsunami record on an emerging coast: A case study of Kanim Lake, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Coastal Research, 13, 545–553.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, I., Guilbault, J.-P., Clague, J.J., Bobrowsky, P.T.(2000). Tsunamis and tectonic deformation at the northern Cascadia margin: A 3000-year record from Deserted Lake, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Holocene, 10, 429–439.Google Scholar
Johnson, S.Y., Potter, C.J., Armentrout, J.M., Miller, J.J., Finn, C., Weaver, C.S.(1996). The southern Whidbey Island fault: An active structure in the Puget Lowland, Washington. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 108, 334–354.Google Scholar
Koshimura, S., Hamzah, L., Imamura, F.(1998). Preliminary Report on Earthquake and Tsunami of the 1998 Papua New Guinea. Disaster Control Research Center,Tohoku University, 18, pp.Google Scholar
Liu, K., Fearn, M.L.(1993). Lake-sediment record of late Holocene hurricane activities from coastal Alabama. Geology, 21, 793–796.Google Scholar
Long, D., Smith, D.E., Dawson, A.G.(1989). A Holocene tsunami deposit in eastern Scotland. Journal of Quaternary Science, 4, 61–66.Google Scholar
Mathewes, R.W., Clague, J.J.(1994). Detection of large prehistoric earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest by microfossil analysis. Science, 264, 688–691.Google Scholar
Meyers, R.A., Smith, D.G., Jol, H.M., Petersen, C.D.(1996). Evidence for eight great earthquake-subsidence events detected with ground penetrating radar, Willapa barrier, Washington. Geology, 24, 99–102.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mofjeld, H.O., Foreman, M.G.G., Ruffman, A.(1997). West coast tides during Cascadia subduction zone tsunamis. Geophysical Research Letters, 24, 2215–2218.Google Scholar
Murty, T.S.. The dynamics of tsunamis. (1975). Proceedings of the 1975 Conference of the Ocean and Marine Technical Society. p. 1–8.Google Scholar
Nelson, A.R., Kelsey, H.M., Hemphill-Haley, E., Witter, R.C.. A potential record of tsunamis generated by great earthquakes along the southern Cascadia subduction zone. (1994). Proceedings of the Workshop on Paleoseismology, 18–22 September, 1994, Marshall, California. p. 134–136.Google Scholar
Ng, M.K.F., LeBlond, P.H., Murty, T.S.(1990). Simulation of tsunamis from great earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone. Science, 250, 1248–1251.Google Scholar
Plafker, G., Kachadoorian, R.(1966). Geologic Effects of the March 1964 Earthquake and Associated Seismic Sea Waves on Kodiak and Nearby Islands, Alaska. USGS Professional Paper 543-D,46, pp.Google Scholar
Regnauld, H., Jennings, S., Delaney, C., Lemasson, L.(1996). Holocene sea-level variations and geomorphological response: An example from northern Brittany (France). Quaternary Science Reviews, 15, 781–787.Google Scholar
Satake, K., Shimazaki, K., Tsuji, Y., Ueda, K.(1996). Time and size of a giant earthquake in Cascadia inferred from Japanese tsunami record of January 1700. Nature, 379, 246–249.Google Scholar
Sherrod, B.L.. Geologic evidence for abrupt subsidence associated with a large earthquake in southern Puget Sound about 1100 years ago. (1999). Geological Society of America Cordilleran Section, Centennial Meeting, Berkeley, California, June, 1999; Abstracts with Programs. p. A-94 Google Scholar
Spaeth, M. G., Berkman, S. C.(1967). The Tsunami of March 28, 1964, as Recorded at Tide Stations, U.S. Department of Commerce,Coast and Geodetic Survey Technical Bulletin No. 33.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M.A., Long, A., Kra, R.S.(1998). Calibration issue. Radiocarbon, 40, 1041–1083.Google Scholar
U.S. General Land Office,(1884). Cadastral Survey Field Notes and Plats for Oregon and Washington. Township 33 N, Range 1E, Section 32.University of Washington, Microforms Newspapers Division, Microfiche M-3066.Google Scholar
Williams, H.F.L. (1999). Foraminiferal distributions in tidal marshes bordering the Strait of Juan de Fuca: implications for paleoseismicity studies. Journal of Foraminiferal Research, 29, 24–36.Google Scholar