ALBERT

Description: A post-hurricane survey of a Caribbean island affords comparisons with geologic evidence for greater overwash at the same place. This comparison, though of limited application to other places, helps calibrate coastal geology for assessment of earthquake and tsunami potential along the Antilles Subduction Zone. The surveyed island, Anegada, is 120 km south of the Puerto Rico Trench and is near the paths of hurricanes Donna (1960) and Earl (2010), which were at or near category 4 when at closest approach. The survey focused on Earl's geologic effects, related them to the surge from Hurricane Donna, and compared them further with erosional and depositional signs of southward overwash from the Atlantic Ocean that dates to 1200–1450 AD and to 1650–1800 AD. The main finding is that the geologic effects of these earlier events dwarf those of the recent hurricanes. Hurricane Earl's geologic effects at Anegada, observed mainly in 2011, were limited to wrack deposition along many of the island's shores and salt ponds, accretion of small washover (spillover) fans on the south shore, and the suspension and deposition of microbial material from interior salt ponds. Earl's most widespread deposit at Anegada, the microbial detritus, was abundantly juxtaposed with evidence for catastrophic overwash in prior centuries. The microbial detritus formed an extensive coating up to 2 cm thick that extended into breaches in beach-ridge plains of the island's north shore, onto playas that are underlain by a sand-and-shell sheet that extends as much as 1.5 km southward from the north shore, and among southward-strewn limestone boulders pendant to outcrops as much as 1 km inland. Earl's spillover fans also contrast with a sand-and-shell sheet, which was dated previously to 1650–1800, by being limited to the island's south shore and by extending inland a few tens of meters at most. These findings complement those reported in this issue by Michaela Spiske and Robert Halley (Spiske and Halley, 2014), who studied a coral-rubble ridge that lines part of Anegada's north shore. Spiske and Halley attribute the ridge to storms that were larger than Earl. But they contrast the ridge with coral boulders that were scattered hundreds of meters inland by overwash in 1200–1450.

Description: A coral-rubble ridge fringes part of the north shore of Anegada, a low-lying island in the northern Caribbean. Both historical reports and the geological record underline its vulnerability to tsunami and hurricanes. In this study we document the sedimentary characteristics of a coral-rubble ridge, which extends discontinuously along 1.5–1.8 km of chiefly north-facing shores at Soldier Wash. The ridge is less distinctive and appears only in patches along the west-facing shoreline at Windless Bight, where the wave regime is calmer. It is located ca. 8 m from the fair-weather shore, has a maximum width of 15 m and a maximum thickness of 0.8 m. The lower seaward-facing slope of the ridge is relatively flat, probably due to successive reworking, whereas the upper seaward slope is steep and partly displays avalanching faces. The landward flank is gently sloping and terminates abruptly. The ridge is mainly composed of well-rounded, encrusted and bored coral rubble (average diameter of 16 cm) that has been reworked in the shallow marine environment prior to transport. Only a few pieces of angular beach rock and karstified Pleistocene limestone are incorporated. The components build a clast-supported framework. No sand is present in the interstices. Imbrication of flat clasts indicates a deposition during landward bed load transport. The ridge morphology, composition and related hydrodynamic conditions during its emplacement are typical for coral-rubble ridges deposited by hurricane-induced storm surges. In comparison, nearby evidence for tsunami inundation is very different because the tsunami-transported coral boulders on Anegada are much bigger (2 m) than the biggest components in the ridge, they are deposited much farther inland (up to 1.5 km), and the corals seem to have been freshly broken out of the reef by the tsunami. The age of the ridge is difficult to estimate. The dark grey surface of the ridge is caused by bioweathering by endolithic organisms that takes tens of years and may give a very rough estimate of the minimum age of the ridge. Storms and related surges that built the ridge were likely stronger than 2010 hurricane Earl, which attained category 4 north of the island. Earl was able to slightly rework the lower seaward part of the ridge, but transported only few and smaller pieces of coral rubble and sand onshore. Therefore, the coral-rubble ridge found at the north shore of Anegada may imply that the island is vulnerable to hurricane-induced surges of greater impact (in relation to storm path and intensity) compared with the any of the recently documented storms which were only able to rework the ridge.