Extreme storms during the last 6500 years from lagoonal sedimentary archives in the Mar Menor (SE Spain)

Storms and tsunamis, which may seriously endanger human society, are amongst the most devastating marine catastrophes that can occur in coastal areas. Many such events are known and have been reported for the Mediterranean, a region where high-frequency occurrences of these extreme events coincides with some of the most densely populated coastal areas in the world. In a sediment core from the Mar Menor (SE Spain), we discovered eight coarse-grained layers which document marine incursions during periods of intense storm activity or tsunami events. Based on radiocarbon dating, these extreme events occurred around 5250, 4000, 3600, 3010, 2300, 1350, 650, and 80 years calaEuro-BP. No comparable events have been observed during the 20th and 21st centuries. The results indicate little likelihood of a tsunami origin for these coarse-grained layers, although historical tsunami events are recorded in this region. These periods of surge events seem to coincide with the coldest periods in Europe during the late Holocene, suggesting a control by a climatic mechanism for periods of increased storm activity. Spectral analyses performed on the sand percentage revealed four major periodicities of 1228aEuro-+/- aEuro-327, 732aEuro-+/- aEuro-80, 562aEuro-+/- aEuro-58, and 319aEuro-+/- aEuro-16 years. Amongst the well-known proxies that have revealed a millennial-scale climate variability during the Holocene, the ice-rafted debris (IRD) indices in the North Atlantic developed by Bond et al. (1997, 2001) present a cyclicity of 1470aEuro-+/- aEuro-500 years, which matches the 1228aEuro-+/- aEuro-327-year periodicity evidenced in the Mar Menor, considering the respective uncertainties in the periodicities. Thus, an in-phase storm activity in the western Mediterranean is found with the coldest periods in Europe and with the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. However, further investigations, such as additional coring and high-resolution coastal imagery, are needed to better constrain the main cause of these multiple events.

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Dezileau L. Perez-Ruzafa A. Blanchemanche P. Degeai J.P. Raji O. Martinez P. Marcos C. y Von Grafenstein U. Extreme storms during the last 6500 years from lagoonal sedimentary archives in the Mar Menor (SE Spain). EGU, 2016. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2016-20

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Retrieved: 10 Jan 2026 02:01:30
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Resource type Article
Date of creation 2024-11-05
Date of last revision 2024-11-05
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Metadata identifier 66acb3c5-cf2e-50c9-b5a7-abd51243cb27
Metadata language Spanish
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High-value dataset category Earth observation and environment
ISO 19115 topic category biota
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Name of the dataset creator Dezileau, L., Perez-Ruzafa, A., Blanchemanche, P., Degeai, J.P., Raji, O., Martinez, P., Marcos, C. y Von Grafenstein, U.
Name of the dataset editor EGU
Other identifier DOI: 10.5194/cp-2016-20
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Email of the dataset creator dezileau@gm.univ-montp2.fr
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