PLEASE NOTE:
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COSMIC IMPACTS AND TSUNAMI: THE UNDERRATED HAZARD
The following text is an extract from Edward A. Bryant's new book
TSUNAMI:
THE UNDERRATED HAZARD, to be published by Cambridge University
Press
(publication c. July 2001).
0 521 77244 3 Hardback £55.00/$74.95
0 521 77599 4 Paperback £19.95/$27.95
For more details and how to order, please visit the CUP website
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Description
In the past decade over ten major tsunami events have impacted on
the
world's coastlines, causing devastation and loss of life.
Evidence for past
great tsunami, or 'mega-tsunami', has also recently been
discovered along
apparently aseismic and protected coastlines. With a large
proportion of the
world's population living on the coastline, the threat from
tsunami can not
be ignored. This book comprehensively describes the nature and
process of
tsunami, outlines field evidence for detecting the presence of
past events,
and describes particular events linked to earthquakes, volcanoes,
submarine
landslides and meteorite impacts. While technical aspects are
covered, much
of the text can be read by anyone with a high school education.
The book
will appeal to students and researchers in geomorphology, earth
and
environmental science, and emergency planning, and will also be
attractive
for the general public interested in natural hazards and new
developments in
science.
Chapter Contents
Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I. Tsunami as Known Hazards: 1.
Introduction;
2. Tsunami dynamics; Part II. Tsunami-Formed Landscapes: 3.
Signatures of
tsunami in the coastal landscape; 4. Coastal landscape evolution;
Part III.
Causes of Tsunami: 5. Earthquake-generated tsunami; 6. Great
landslides; 7.
Volcanic eruptions; 8. Comets and meteorites; Part IV. Modern
Risk of
Tsunami: 9. Risk; 10. Epilogue; References; Index.
-------------
MORE RECENT EVIDENCE FROM LEGENDS AND MYTHS
By Edward A. Byrant
Deluge Comet Impact Event 8,200 ± 200 years ago
(Kristan-Tollmann and
Tollmann, 1992)
If cosmogenically generated tsunami are so rare, certainly within
the
timespan of human civilisation, then a paradox exists because
evidence for
such events certainly appears often in the geological record and
in human
legends. Traditionally, the difficulty in discriminating between
fact and
fiction, between echoes of the real past and dreams, has
discouraged
historians and scientists from making inferences about
catastrophic events
from myths or deciphered records. Yet, common threads appear in
many ancient
tales. Stories told by the Washo Indians of California and by the
Aborigines
of South Australia portray falling stars, fire from the sky, and
cataclysmic
floods unlike any modern event. Similar portrayals appear in the
Gilgamesh
myth from the Middle East, in Peruvian legends, and in the
Revelations of
Saint John and the Noachian flood story in the Bible. Victor
Clube of Oxford
University and William Napier of the Royal Observatory of
Edinburgh have
pieced together consistent patterns in ancient writings, which
they
interpret as representing meteoritic showers 3,000-6,000 years
ago. One of
the more disturbing accounts has been compiled from these legends
by Edith
and Alexander Tollmann of the University of Vienna, who believe
that a comet
circling the sun fragmented into seven large bodies that crashed
into the
world's oceans 8,200 ± 200 years ago. This age is based on
radiocarbon dates
from Vietnam, Australia and Europe. The impacts generated an
atmospheric
fireball that globally affected society. This was followed by a
nuclear
winter characterised by global cooling. More significantly,
enormous tsunami
swept across coastal plains and, if the legends are to be
believed,
overwashed the centre of continents. The latter phenomenon, if
true, most
likely was associated with the splash from the impacts rather
than with
conventional tsunami run-up. Massive floods then occurred across
continents.
The event may well have an element of truth. Figure 8.9 plots the
location
of the seven impact sites derived from geological evidence and
legends. Two
of these sites, in the Tasman and North Seas, have been
identified as having
mega-tsunami events around this time. The North Sea impact centre
corresponds with the location of the Storegga slides described in
Chapter 6.
Here, the main tsunami took place 7,950 ±190 years ago. One of
the better
dates comes from wood lying above tektites in a sand dune along
the South
Coast of Victoria, Australia. The tektites are associated with
the Tasman
Sea impact and date at 8,200 ±250 years before present. These
dates place
the Deluge Comet impact event--a term used by the
Tollmanns--around 6200 BC.
This event does not stand alone during the Holocene. It has been
repeated in
recent times--a fact supported by Maori and Aborigine legends
from New
Zealand and Australia.
MYSTIC FIRES OF TAMAATEA
(Mooley et al., 1963; Steel and Snow, 1992; McGlone and
Wilmshurst, 1999)
One of the more intriguing legends associated with the Taurids is
the New
Zealand Maori legend known as the Mystic Fires of Tamaatea. The
legend
originates in the North Island; but, ethnographic evidence is
best
chronicled in the Southland and Otago regions of the South
Island, centred
on the town of Tapanui (Figure 8.10). Here there appears to be
evidence for
an airburst that flatten trees similar to the Tunguska event. The
remains of
fallen trees are aligned radially away from the point of
explosion out to a
distance of 40-80 kilometres. Maori legends in the area tell
about the
falling of the skies, raging winds and mysterious and massive
firestorms
from space. The Sun was screened out causing death and decay.
Maori names in
the region refer to a Tunguska-like explosion. Tapanui, itself,
translates
as "the big explosion", while Waipahi means "the
place of the exploding
fire". Place names such as Waitepeka, Kaka Point, and Oweka
contain the
southern Maori word "ka" which means fire. Some place
names put the timing
of the fires in the Southern Hemisphere winter around June at the
timing of
the Taurids. A deluge then followed the widespread fires. One
legend states
that the Aparima Plains west of Invercargill were flooded.
Dimpling on the
plain suggests that trees were toppled landward by water from the
sea, and
Maori place names such as Tainui, Tairoa and Paretai, inland from
the ocean,
suggest a tsunami was involved because the affix "Tai"
translates as "wave".
The Maori also attribute the demise of the Moas, as well as their
culture,
to an extraterrestrial event. The extinction of the Mao is
remembered as
Manu Whakatau, "the bird felled by strange fire". One
Maori song refers to
the destruction of the Moa when the horns of the Moon fell down
from above.
On the North Island, the disappearance of the Moa is linked to
the coming of
the man/god Tamaatea who set fire to the land by dropping embers
from the
sky. Remains of Moa on the South Island can be found clustered in
swamps as
if these flightless birds fled en masse to avoid some
catastrophe. Southern
Maori legends tell of stones falling from the sky that caused
massive
firestorms that not only annihilated the Moa, but also Maori
culture.
The age when these fires occurred can be determined by
radiocarbon dating
wood debris from the fires. The dating evidence comes from two
sources:
buried wood and carbon derived from unconformal layers in swamps
and bogs
that have been interrupted as fire-induced. These dates
traditionally have
been interpreted as reflecting the time of deforestation due to
Maori
occupation in New Zealand. However, many of the dates come from
uninhabitable high country that was burnt on a vast scale. The
distribution
of dates is plotted in Figure 8.3 and spans at least two
centuries, with the
ages peaking at the beginning of the Fifteenth Century. This wide
range in
dates is logical knowing that mature trees, already hundreds of
years old,
burnt. The crucial point is that few ages occur after the
Fifteenth Century.
The Fires of Tamaatea legend may well have a cosmogenic origin.
The peak in
dates is synchronous with the highest number of meteor sightings
by Chinese
and Japanese astronomers for the past two thousand years (Figure
8.3). More
importantly, the timing of the fires is also coherent with the
occurrence of
mega-tsunami along the nearby coastline of Southeast Australia.
EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIA
(Oliver, 1988; Bryant et al., 1996)
The evidence from Australia for cosmogenic mega-tsunami is based
upon the
magnitude of geomorphic features and their contemporaneously
occurrence over
a wide region that includes the Tasman Sea and the East Coast of
New
Zealand. This chronology coincides with the timing of legends
and the influx of comets and meteorites over the last millennium.
As pointed
out in Chapter 1, Australia historically has not been affected
significantly
by large tsunami. The closest sources for earthquake-generated
tsunami lie
along the Tonga-New Hebrides Trenches, and the Indonesian
Archipelago. An
earthquake with a surface magnitude greater than 8.3 on the
Richter scale
can be generated in the Southwest Pacific every 125 years. The
highest
tsunami recorded at Sydney since 1870 occurred on 10 May 1877,
and had a
height of 1.07 metres. The Chilean earthquake of 1868 produced a
tsunami
height of 1.0 m, while the Chilean earthquake of 22 May 1960
generated a
tsunami height of 0.85 metres. On the West Coast, the biggest
tsunami run-up
measured six metres at Cape Leveque, Western Australia on 19
August 1977
following an Indonesian earthquake.
Palaeo-tsunami generated by conventional mechanisms, and larger
than these
historical events are possible. The proximity of the northwest
coastline to
the volcanically, and seismically active Indonesian Archipelago
makes large
tsunami with run-ups of ten metres a distinct possibility.
Additionally, the East Coast lies exposed to tsunami generated by
earthquakes on seamounts in the Tasman Sea, and along the Alpine
Fault
running down the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
This latter
fault last ruptured in the Fifteenth Century before European
colonisation of
the region. Nor can volcanic activity be ruled out along the East
Coast.
Active volcanoes lie in the Tonga-Kermadec Trench region north of
New
Zealand. In AD 1453, a volcanic eruption in Tonga created a
crater, 18 km
long, 6.5 km wide and 0.8 km deep. The volcano erupted with a
force
equivalent to twenty thousand Megatons of TNT and produced a
tsunami wave,
thirty metres high. Finally, local slides off the Australian
continental
shelf cannot be ignored. A very large submarine landslide
mentioned in
previous chapters, lies fifty kilometres offshore from the coast
south of
Sydney. This slide is a prime candidate for the tsunami-deposited
barrier
described in Chapter 4 along the adjacent coast (Figure 4.1).
MEGA-TSUNAMI EVIDENCE FOR A COSMOGENIC SOURCE
(Bryant and Young, 1996; Jones and Mader, 1996; Bryant et al.,
1997; Bryant
and Nott, 2000)
Some of the Australian evidence for tsunami is on a scale much
bigger than
could possibly be generated by the geophysical processes
described in
Chapters 5-7. Very few tsunami attributed to these latter types
of events
have generated anything approaching the bedrock-sculptured
s-forms outlined
in Chapter 3 (Figure 3.1). For example, while the Lituya Bay
landslide of
1958 generated a tsunami that surged 524 m above sea level and
obtained
velocities of 210 km hr-1, it only cleared soil and glacial
debris overlying
bedrock on nearby slopes. Only the Storegga slide--and this may
be one of
Tollmanns' meteorite impacts--produced s-forms similar to that
profusely
blanketing the rocky headlands of the New South Wales South
Coast. Meteorite
impacts with the ocean can unequivocally generate the large
tsunami
necessary for the formation of s-forms. Modelling results, using
the SWAN
code described in Chapter 2, indicates that a six kilometre
diameter
asteroid impacting into the central Pacific would produce a
tsunami fifteen
metres high along the New South Wales Coast. As shown in Table
8.1, much
smaller impacts near Australia could also produce waves with this
height.
Four other signatures also stand out as unique features of
cosmogenic
tsunami: whirlpools bored in bedrock, imbricated boulders
fronting cliffs,
mega-ripples, and overwashing of headlands up to 130 m high.
Whirlpools bored into bedrock, of the type shown in Figure 3.23,
are rare.
Isolated bedrock plugs of the type shown on the frontispiece at
the front of
this book are rarer still. The kolks and tornadic flow necessary
to form
them have been described in detail in Chapter 3 (Figure 3.25).
Suffice it to
say here that kolks involve enormous hydraulic lift forces
produced by
turbulent bursting and steep pressure gradients across vortices.
Tornadic
flow involves the breakdown of a wide, parent vortex with
secondary vortices
developing around its circumference. The current speed around the
vortex is
so high that bedrock can be bored in a matter of minutes. These
types of
flow can only be produced by cosmogenic tsunami.
Imbricated and aligned boulders were also depicted in Chapters 3
and 4 as a
signature that uniquely separates the presence of tsunami from
storms. While
the boulders perched on top of thirty-three metre high cliffs at
Jervis Bay
are impressive evidence of the high velocity flow that only
tsunami can
produce (Figure 3.11), it pales in magnitude to other boulder
deposits found
in the region--namely at Gum Getters Inlet and Mermaids Inlet. At
Gum
Getters Inlet, angular boulders 6-7 m in diameter have been
stacked up to
thirty metres above sea level into a small indent in the cliffs
(Figure
8.11). It would be tempting to attribute this debris to cliff
collapse, but
for the fact that the imbricated blocks rise to thetop of the
cliffs. The
deposit is all the more unusual in that the indent is virtually
protected
from dominant southeast storm swell. Imbricated blocks of similar
size choke
the entrances of two narrow and deep gulches at Mermaids Inlet
(Figure
8.12). Some of the largest blocks, which are over five metres in
length,
have not simply dropped from the cliff faces; but, have been
rotated 180°
and shifted laterally in suspension flow. Not even the 26.2-m
high run-up at
Riang-Kroko, following the Flores Island tsunami of 12 December
1992,
produced the magnitude and degree of organisation of these
deposits (Figure
3.5). The depth of overland tsunami flow in the Jervis Bay region
has been
theorised at 9.5 metres. The boulder features at Gum Getters
Inlet are
suggestive of even greater flow depths of 15-20 m that only a
cosmogenic
tsunami could generate.
Just as dramatic are the dunes at Crocodile Head, Jervis Bay; and
at Sampson
Point, Western Australia. Both of these features were described
in Chapters
3 and 4. The former lie atop eighty metre high cliffs, have a
relief of
6.0-7.5 m and are spaced 160 m apart. They are akin to
undulatory-to-lingoidal giant ripples that are features of
catastrophic flow
such as that observed in the scablands of Washington State. The
flow over
the dunes at Crocodile Head is theorised to have been 7.5-12.0 m
deep, and
to have obtained velocities of 6.9-8.1 m s-1. The Sampson Point
mega-ripples
are gravelly (Figure 4.13), have a wavelength approaching one
thousand
metres and an amplitude of about five metres. Flow depth here is
theorised
to have been as great as twenty metres with velocities of over 13
m s-1.
More importantly, the mega-ripples occur up to five kilometres
from the
coast. These mega-ripples have never been described for
conventional tsunami
and could only have been produced by a cosmogenic event.
Finally, there is evidence of tsunami run-up higher and further
inland than
produced by conventional processes. The largest run-up produced
historically
by a volcano was ninety metres on 29 August 1741 on the West
Coasts of
Oshima and Hokkaido Islands, Japan. Santorini may also have had a
tsunami
wave height of ninety metres, but confirmed evidence for its
run-up does not
exceed fifty metres above sea level. The largest tsunami run-up
generated by
an earthquake was one hundred metres on Ambon Island, Indonesia
on 17
February 1674. In recent times, an earthquake or submarine
landslide off the
Sanriku Coast of Japan produced run-up of 38.2 m on 15 June 1896.
The
highest palaeo-tsunami run-up identified in Australia so far is
130 m at
Steamers Beach, Jervis Bay on the crest of a chevron dune. This
site has
been referred to often in this text. However, this limit is
under-estimated
because the wave still had enough force not only to flow over the
headland
and into Jervis Bay; but also to transport large boulders along a
ramp
inside the bay. The estimated flow velocity derived from these
boulders
using Equation 3.8 is 7.9 m s-1. The potential for higher run-up
may have
been exceeded at Sampson Point. Here a palaeo-tsunami originating
from the
Indian Ocean overran hills, sixty metres high, lying five
kilometres inland.
ABORIGINAL LEGENDS OF COMETS
(Peck, 1938; Jones and Donaldson, 1989; Johnson, 1998)
This book began with a story based upon Aboriginal legends about
a meteorite
impact. Many of these legends are concentrated in the southeast
corner of
Australia, where some of the best signatures of large tsunami are
preserved.
As with Gervasse's description of the meteor impact with the Moon
on 19 June
AD 1178, the Aboriginal legend in Chapter 1 mentions that the
moon rocked.
There are also similarities with the Maori legend of the Fires of
Tamaatea.
In both, stars, fire and stones fell from the sky, and there was
a
thunderous explosion. Further inland in New South Wales, the
Paakantji
tribe, near Wilcannia on the Darling River, also tell of the sky
falling. A
great thunderous ball of fire descended from the sky scattering
molten rock
of many colours. As in the Maori legend of New Zealand, floods
then followed
this event. The floods may have been the consequence of millions
of tonnes
of seawater, vapourised by a meteorite impact with the ocean,
condensing and
falling as rain. In South Australia, another legend tells of
stars falling
to Earth to make the circular lagoons fringing the coast.
Finally, it is
curious that when Europeans made contact with Aboriginal coastal
tribes in
Western Australia, they noted that the Aborigines avoided the
coast, and
made little attempt to use it for food, even though there was
evidence of
past usage in the form of large, shell kitchen middens. As
described in
Chapter 4, the biggest mega-tsunami to affect Australia occurred
on the West
Australia Coast within the last one thousand years, before
European
occupation.
Perhaps the most intriguing legend along the Southeast Coast of
Australia is
the story of the eastern sky falling. Aborigines south of Sydney
believed
that the sky was held up on supports, and that these gave way on
the eastern
side. One version refers to the ocean as belonging to the sky.
The ocean had
fallen down wiping out Aboriginal culture. Some tribes were even
requested
by others to send tribute to the east to be given to the spirit
people in
charge of holding up the sky, so that it could be repaired.
Archaeological
evidence for tsunami and its impact on Aboriginal culture also
exists along
this coast. One of the deposition signatures of tsunami mentioned
in Chapter
3 was the presence of disturbed, Aboriginal kitchen middens, that
form a
special case of dump deposit more than ten metres above sea level
on some
rocky headlands. At Atcheson Rock, sixty kilometres south of
Sydney (Figure
3.20), tsunami overwashed a 20-25 m high headland, boring
whirlpools into
the sides. The wave was travelling so fast that it separated from
the
headland and made contacted with the sea 100-200 m on the lee
side in a bay.
Flow separation caused profuse amounts of coarse sediment to drop
from the
flow under gravity, and be deposited on the lee side of the
headland. On the
far side of the bay, a dump deposit contains numerous silcrete
hand axes and
shaped blades that came from an Aboriginal camp at the head of
the
embayment. Aborigines in this camp initially would have heard,
but not seen,
the tsunami approaching. Their first indication of disaster would
have been
when they looked up and saw the ocean dropping down on them from
the sky, as
the tsunami wave surged over the headland.
Dating of the deposits at Atcheson Rock indicates that the
meteorite-induced
tsunami occurred within the last six hundred years, rather than
in some
distant Dreamtime. Archaeological research has shown that
Aboriginal culture
changed dramatically along this coast about five hundred years
ago. Instead
of continuing their profuse gathering of marine shells for food,
Aborigines
switched to fishing. If a tsunami wave had the force to sweep
over 130 m
high headlands in the region, then it would have been powerful
enough to
clear all marine shells from rock platforms. The
event necessitated a change in lifestyle by Aborigines simply to
survive
starvation. There is also evidence from increased usage of rock
shelters,
that Aborigines moved inland around this time. While interpreted
as an
indication of increasing population, it could also indicate
abandonment of a
dangerous coast similar that observed in West Australia.
More physical and legendary evidence of tsunami comes from South
Australia.
Here, mainland Aborigines tell about Ngurunderi who was a great,
moody
ancestral figure who lived in the sky. Long ago his two wives
left him, and
he came down from the sky to find them. He eventually found his
wives wading
in the water between Kangaroo Island and the mainland of South
Australia. He
was so angry that he decided to punish his wives. He ordered the
sea to rise
up as an enormous tidal wave and drown them. Noisily, the water
rushed in so
fast that it quickly drowned his wives who were turned into
stone. Their
remains can be seen off the coast of Cape Jervis as rocks called
the Two
Sisters. The history of Aboriginal occupation of Kangaroo Island
remains
enigmatic. The island shows extensive evidence of Aboriginal
occupancy; but,
when the first European, Matthew Flinders, landed on the island
in 1802, it
was totally unoccupied. Mainland Aborigines call Kangaroo Island,
Kanga--the
Island of the Dead. The coastline also evinces signatures of
cosmogenic
tsunami. Most significant are enormous, bored whirlpools on the
northern
coast of the island, where the Aboriginal legend is set. The
features are
larger than those found at Atcheson Rock. In addition, there are
vortex-carved caves and massive piles of imbricated boulders,
some over four
metres in diameter, near promontories. The Island of the Dead may
be just
that--evidence of another, tragic, cosmogenic tsunami witnessed
by
Australian Aborigines before European occupation, and then
documented by the
few survivors in legend form.
CHRONOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
(Asher et al., 1994; Steel, 1995; Young et al., 1997; Estensen,
1998; Bryant
and Nott, 2000)
At present, no evidence has been found of a meteorite or comet
impact linked
to the signatures of mega-tsunami along the South Coast of New
South Wales.
Nor may any be found because it does not take a large meteorite
impact in
the ocean to produce the size of tsunami responsible for the
observed
evidence. Meteorite impacts also tend not to leave a crater on
the seabed.
For example, no crater for the Eltanin Meteorite has yet been
found despite
its four-kilometre diameter. However, the timing of tsunami
events can be
approximated using radiocarbon dating of marine shell deposited
in dump
deposits and sand layers, and attached to boulders transported by
tsunami.
Radiocarbon dating is only accurate for events that are older
than 460
years. At least twenty dates have been obtained from the New
South Wales
South Coast. In addition, three samples related to tsunami were
obtained
from Lord Howe Island situated in the Tasman Sea halfway between
Australia
and New Zealand (Figure 8.10). At least ten additional dates were
too young
to be plotted. Each radiocarbon age is reported as an age with an
error
term. This information can be used to construct a probability
distribution
of dates for that sample. An overall time series was then
constructed by
summing these probabilities for all samples. For presentation
purposes, this
time series has been standardised to a maximum value of one. The
resulting
time series spanning the last ten thousand years is plotted in
Figure 8.13,
while that for the last two thousand years is plotted in more
detail in the
bottom panel of Figure 8.3.
Six separate tsunami events can be recognised over the past 8,000
years with
peaks at 7500 BC, 5000 BC, 3300 BC, 500-2000 BC, AD 500 and AD
1500. There
may be more events than this; but, until further dating, it is
impossible to
know whether or not the broad sequence of dates between 500-2000
BC
represents a single event or many. This later timespan includes
an impact
event in the Middle East dated around 1600 BC. Reference to fire
and stones
falling from the sky appear in the Bible and other manuscripts
written
around this time. The record, however, doesn't show any evidence
for a
Bronze Age event around 2350 BC that is believed to have
destroyed
civilisations simultaneously in Europe, the Middle East, India
and China.
Nor do any of the dates cluster around the time of Tollmanns'
Deluge Comet
impact event 8,200 ±200 years ago. This may be due to the poor
preservation
potential of shell material this old, or to the removal of such
material by
subsequent tsunami. However, thermoluminescence dating of sand
layers
deposited by tsunami, on the New South Wales South Coast,
indicate that a
major discontinuity in sedimentation occurred 8,700 ± 800 years
ago. This
hiatus is within the timespan of Tollmanns' Deluge Comet impact
event. The
New South Wales event peaking in AD 1500 appears to be the
largest as it is
associated with overtopping of the headland, 130 m high, at
Steamers Beach,
Jervis Bay. Because no large tsunami has been reported along the
New South
Wales Coast since European settlement in 1788, the shell samples
that are
too young for radiocarbon dating allude to a small, but
significant, tsunami
event in the early Eighteenth Century.
The peak of the AD 1500 tsunami event corresponds with the
largest number of
meteorite observations for the past two millennia (Figure 8.3).
In addition,
the peak at AD 500 corresponds with a clustering of meteorite
sightings that
is believed by astronomers to be one of the most
significant over this timespan in the Northern Hemisphere. Both
of these
clusterings are associated with the Taurid complex. Furthermore,
the event
around AD 1500 coincides with the calibrated ages for the Fires
of Tamaatea
across the Tasman Sea on the South Island of New Zealand. As
well, the
tsunami event at Atcheson Rock that accounts for the Aboriginal
legend of
the ocean falling from the sky occurred at this time, as does the
age of the
meandering backwash channels on the Shoalhaven Delta forty
kilometres to the
south (Figure 4.3). Other main sightings of meteorites from the
Northern
Hemisphere correspond with minor peaks in the Southeast
Australian tsunami
chronology. It would appear that meteorite, rather than comet
impacts,
correspond to the Australian chronology for tsunami. The two
minor clusters
of meteorite activity between 1640 and 1800 may have produced
cosmogenic
tsunami that account not only for evidence of a pre-European
event in New
South Wales, but also for tsunami identified in Chapter 4 along
the
Northwest Coasts of West Australia and Northeast Queensland. The
lack of any
mega-tsunami event since AD 1788--the time of first European
settlement--may
only be fortuitous. Based upon the data for the last two
millennia, there is
a fifty-percent probability that such an event could occur again
in the next
half century.
The events between the Fifteenth and Eighteenth Centuries
preceded European
colonisation in Australia; however, they coincide with European
exploration
around the continent and Dutch colonisation in Indonesia. In the
Eighteenth
Century, without the means of determining longitude, merchant
ships of the
Dutch East Indian Company made their way to the colonial city of
Batavia in
Indonesia by sailing straight across the Indian Ocean until they
sighted the
Australian coastline, and then turning north. They would have
sailed by the
Northwest Coast of West Australia around the time a cosmogenic
tsunami
struck that coast. Many ships in pursuit of exploration and
commerce were
loss and presumed shipwrecked; but, without hard evidence, it is
best to put
these losses down to storms.
Two shipwrecks in Australia stand out as unusual. The first
relates to the
Mahogany ship now buried in sand dunes well above sea level at
Warrnambool,
Victoria. In 1521, three Portuguese caravels under the leadership
of
Cristoväo de Mendonça sailed on a secret mission from Malacca,
East Indies
to explore the Australian coastline. The reason for the secrecy
was the
intense competition between Spain and Portugal for world
domination. Only
one of Mendonça's ships made it back. Any record of his
expedition
disappeared into the secret Portuguese archives in Lisbon
where no one has seen them since. It is unlikely that they
survived the
earthquake and subsequent fire of 1755. In 1836, a mahogany ship
was
discovered, washed inland well above the limit of storm waves,
near
Warrnambool, on an isolated part of the Victorian Coast of
southern
Australia (Figure 8.10). The first Europeans known to have landed
on this
coast made the discovery. Unfortunately, the stranded ship was
buried in
shifting sands by 1880, never to be seen again. Intriguingly,
evidence
suggests that Mendonça did reach and map the South Coast of
Australia. This
evidence comes from the Dieppe maps, first published in the
mid-1500s. They
show remarkably detailed coastline down the East Coast of
Australia and
across the South Coast of Australia. The maps terminate at
Warrnambool,
Victoria! How the Mahogany ship managed to get into the sand
dunes has
remained an arcanum ever since.
The second shipwreck involves the Zuytdorp, a Dutch East India
Company
merchant vessel that was part of a convoy supplying the Dutch
East Indies at
regular intervals. In June-July 1712, the Zuytdorp crashed into
the cliffs
off Northwest Cape, Western Australia (Figure 3.2). Debris,
including the ship's bell, was scattered amongst masses of
boulders up
cliffs rising seventy metres above sea level--well above the
limits of storm
waves. The ship struck the reefs at the base of the cliffs
suddenly, because
all six of its anchors were found intact without having been set,
as would
have been the case if the ship had been caught in a storm.
Interestingly,
the top of the cliffs is covered in a dump deposit of shell, sand
and
angular gravels that has been misinterpreted by many
anthropologists as an
Aboriginal kitchen midden. The dates for both the
Mahogany and Zuytdorp shipwrecks fit within temporal windows for
two
cosmogenic tsunami around the Australian Coast based upon
radiocarbon
dating.
There is controversy about the size of tsunami that can be
generated by
meteorite impacts. Also, if one examines the geological record,
the
theorised distribution of tsunami wave heights, calculated using
one of the
formula leaning towards higher estimates, shows that cosmogenic
tsunami have
not been big enough to be a dominant force shaping the world's
coastal
landscape. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence to
indicate that
some coastlines--mainly around Australia--have been affected by
sufficient
depth and velocity of water to transport boulders to the tops of
cliffs 33 m
high, deposit sandy bedforms on cliffs 80 m high, overwash
headlands up to
130 m above sea level, and breech hills 60 m high lying five
kilometres
inland. Similar evidence in the form of bedrock sculpturing can
also be
found along the coastlines of New Zealand and Northeastern
Scotland. Two
factors involving meteorite impacts with the ocean may account
for the
discrepancy between theory and fact. For example, meteorites of
varying
density and less than one kilometre in diameter can fragment and
undergo
distortion before striking the ocean. If this is the case,
craters ten times
larger than the radius of the original asteroid or comet may
dimple the
ocean, creating a tsunami larger than could be produced by an
unaltered
meteorite. Secondly, large amounts of water and heated vapour can
be flung
into the ocean and tossed significant distances away from the
centre of an
impact (Figure 8.4). This high velocity, air-borne splash may not
only
explain the inland flooding mentioned in many comet legends, but
also
account for erosion of bedrock and emplacement of dump deposits
on headlands
and clifftops. Research on this aspect is in its infancy.
Finally, the
threat of splash or impact-related tsunami from meteorites may be
alarmist.
If coherent catastrophism is associated with the Taurid complex,
then apart
from the odd random Earth-crossing meteor or comet, the next
large influx of
meteorites will not occur until around the year AD 3000. The
overall risk of
all types of tsunami and society's mitigation of the threat will
be
discussed in the next chapter.
Figure 8.3 Incidence of comets and meteorites, and related
phenomena,
between AD 0-1800. The meteorite records for China and Japan are
based upon
Hasegawa (1992), while meteorite records for Europe come from
Rasmussen
(1991). Peak occurrences are shaded. The Asian comet record is
based upon
Hasegawa (1992). The calibrated radiocarbon dates under the
Mystic Fires of
Tamaatea are from Mooley et al. (1963) for forest wood and from
McGlone and
Wilmshurst (1999) for peats and bogs. The radiocarbon dates of
prehistoric
tsunami events in Australia are based upon the author's published
work and
other acknowledged research. See text for more details.
_____________________________________________________________________
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Copyright 2001, Cambridge University Press