Paleo-Tsunami Relics on the Southern and Central Antillean Island Arc

Abstract

Three Holocene tsunami events that struck the islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire around 450–500 YBP, 1,500 YBP, and 3,500 YBP resulted in extensive deposits of coarse sediments and boulders along the coastal zone. The tsunami waves approached the islands from an easterly direction. We investigated paleo-tsunami imprints on the islands of Grenada, St. Lucia, and Guadeloupe to locate the source area of those three events. However, along the Caribbean coastlines of the islands, no evidence for Holocene tsunami impacts have been found. Instead, tsunami relics of Middle Pleistocene age are incorporated into tephra depositions of these volcanic islands. At least one Holocene tsunami event is preserved in the form of bimodal accumulations and boulder deposits along the east coast of Guadeloupe, indicating that the tsunami hit the island from the open Atlantic ocean. Radiocarbon dating yielded an age of about 2,400–2,700 years YBP for the event