Landscape reconstruction and major flood events of the River Main (Hesse, Germany) in the environs of the Roman fort at Groβkrotzenburg

Abstract Detailed geoarchaeological studies were conducted at the Groβkrotzenburg floodplain (Southern Hesse, Germany) in order to reconstruct the fluvial palaeogeography and search for Roman harbour installations. Another objective was to reconstruct the local flood history based on stratigraphic and geochronological data. Prospection based on electrical resistivity tomography, vibracoring and direct push electrical conductivity logging were carried out to detect and analyze subsurface stratigraphies. Altogether, 6 sediment cores, up to 7 m long, were drilled along transects along and perpendicular to the present course of the River Main. Based on sedimentological and geochemical data, we …

River channel evolution and tsunami impacts recorded in local sedimentary archives – the ‘Fiume Morto’ at Ostia Antica (Tiber River, Italy)

Tracing tsunami signatures of thead551 andad1303 tsunamis at the Gulf of Kyparissia (Peloponnese, Greece) using direct pushin situsensing techniques combined with geophysical studies

Dyke failures in the Province of Groningen (Netherlands) associated with the 1717 Christmas flood: a reconstruction based on geoscientific field data and numerical simulations

AbstractThe 1717 Christmas flood is one of the most catastrophic storm surges the Frisian coast (Netherlands and Germany) has ever experienced. With more than 13,700 casualties it is the last severe storm surge with a death toll of this order. At the same time, little is known about the hydrodynamic conditions and the morphological effects associated with this storm surge.In this study, 41 potential dyke failures in the Province of Groningen (Netherlands) associated with the 1717 Christmas flood were systematically reconstructed and mapped by using historical maps and literature and by analysing the recent topography in search of typical pothole structures and sediment fans. The dimensions …

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

Abstract 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 det…

Detection and localization of chamber tombs in the environs of ancient Olympia, Peloponnese, Greece, based on a combination of archaeological survey and geophysical prospection

The Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Cadiz as a natural laboratory for paleotsunami research: Recent advancements

International audience; After the 2004 Indian Ocean (IOT) and the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunamis, new research in tsunami-related fields was strongly stimulated worldwide and also in the Mediterranean. This research growth yields substantial advancements in tsunami knowledge.Among these advancements is the “Paleotsunami” research that has marked particular progress on the reconstruction of the tsunami history of a region. As an integration of the historical documentation available in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Cadiz areas, geological and geoarchaeological records provide the insights to define the occurrence, characteristics, and impact of tsunamis of the past. Here, we present the recent …

Automated facies identification by Direct Push-based sensing methods (CPT, HPT) and multivariate linear discriminant analysis to decipher geomorphological changes and storm surge impact on a medieval coastal landscape

In ad 1362, a major storm surge drowned wide areas of cultivated medieval marshland along the north‐western coast of Germany and turned them into tidal flats. This study presents a new methodological approach for the reconstruction of changing coastal landscapes developed from a study site in the Wadden Sea of North Frisia. Initially, we deciphered long‐term as well as event‐related short‐term geomorphological changes, using a geoscientific standard approach of vibracoring, analyses of sedimentary, geochemical and microfaunal palaeoenvironmental parameters and radiocarbon dating. In a next step, Direct Push (DP)‐based Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) and the Hydraulic Profiling Tool (HPT) wer…