The sedimentary and geomorphological imprint of the AD 365 tsunami on the coasts of southwestern Crete (Greece) – Examples from Sougia and Palaiochora

• Published in: Quaternary international 2018-04, Vol.473, p.66-90
• Main Authors: Werner, Vera, Baika, Kalliopi, Fischer, Peter, Hadler, Hanna, Obrocki, Lea, Willershäuser, Timo, Tzigounaki, Anastasia, Tsigkou, Aggeliki, Reicherter, Klaus, Papanikolaou, Ioannis, Emde, Kurt, Vött, Andreas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Humanities and Social Sciences
• ISSN: 1040-6182; 1873-4553
• DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2017.07.016

The southwestern coast of Crete, one of the most seismically active regions in Europe, experienced co-seismic crust uplift by 9 m during the Ms = 8.3 mega-earthquake that struck the eastern Mediterranean world on 21 July AD 365. An associated tsunami event caused thousands of fatalities and destroyed many coastal settlements and infrastructure between the Levante in the east and the Adriatic Sea in the northwest. So far, coastal sedimentary archives in southwestern Crete including distinct palaeotsunami fingerprints are rarely investigated. Therefore, a multi-proxy study including sedimentological, geochemical, geochronological, and microfaunal methods was conducted in order to detect onshore coastal sedimentary archives that functioned as fine sediment traps and document palaeotsunami imprint. We found adequate archives at the Sougia and Palaiochora coastal plains that were used to reconstruct the palaeogeographical evolution and the palaeoseismological history of SW Crete during the late Holocene. Our studies revealed distinct geomorphological, sedimentological, geochemical, and microfaunal traces of high-energy impact from the marine side related to seismic events. At the Sougia coastal plain a sheet of fine sand with a neat microfossil and geochemical fingerprint was found sandwiched between underlying pre-tsunami muds and overlying post-tsunami colluvial silt. In the Palaiochora coastal plain, tsunami overflow of a flat Neogene bedrock platform led to the accumulation of sand-dominated deposits that were subsequently covered by colluvial material from the adjacent hillslopes. Based on radiocarbon and luminescence dating approaches, it is shown that the AD 365 tsunami event is the best-fit candidate for the tsunami-related sediments deposited at both, Sougia and Palaiochora. This study, for the first time, presents multi-proxy evidence of the AD 365 tsunami imprint on fine-sedimentary archives along the western and southwestern coast of Crete.