A Coastal Yucatan Sinkhole Records Intense Hurricane Events

Brown, A; Reinhardt, Eduard G.; Hengstum, Peter J. van; Pilarczyk, Jessica E.

doi:10.2112/jcoastres-d-13-00069.1

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…TCs passing the Great Blue Hole sediment trap either cause a sediment slope collapse at the top of the sinkhole, or physically initiate a suspension and settling of coarse-grained carbonate particles (> 63 μm) from the surrounding lagoon floor and marginal reef through storm wave and surge impact 33 . The coarser and sometimes graded event layers reveal both sharp erosive (downslope density flows) and gradual contacts (settling out of suspension) to the varved section 33 . The gradation trends are generally comparable to the textural behaviour of a classic storm surge deposit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caribbean cyclone activity: an annually-resolved Common Era record

Schmitt

Gischler

Anselmetti

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Tropical cyclones (TC) represent a substantial threat to life and property for Caribbean and adjacent populations. The prospective increase of TC magnitudes, expressed in the 15th chapter of the IPCC AR5 report, entails a rising probability of ecological and social disasters, which were tragically exemplified by several severe Caribbean TC strikes during the past 20 years. Modern IPCC-grade climate models, however, still lack the required spatial and temporal resolution to accurately consider the underlying boundary conditions that modulate long-time TC patterns beyond the Instrumental Era. It is thus necessary to provide a synoptic mechanistic understanding regarding the origin of such long-time patterns, in order to predict reliable changes of TC magnitude and frequency under future climate scenarios. Caribbean TC records are still rare and often lack the necessary continuity and resolution to overcome these limitations. Here, we report on an annually-resolved sedimentary archive from the bottom of the Great Blue Hole (Lighthouse Reef, Belize). The TC record encompasses 1885 years and extends all existing site-specific TC archives both in terms of resolution and duration. We identified a likely connection between long-term TC patterns and climate phenomena responses to Common Era climate variations and offer a conceptual and comparative view considering several involved tropospheric and oceanographic control mechanisms such as the El-Niño-Southern-Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. These basin-scaled climate modes exercise internal control on TC activity by modulating the thermodynamic environment (sea-surface temperature and vertical wind shear stress dynamics) for enhanced/suppressed TC formation both on millennial (primary) and multi-decadal (secondary) time scales. We interpret the beginning of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) as an important time interval of the Common Era record and suspect that the southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) caused, in combination with extensive hydro-climate changes, a shift in the tropical Atlantic TC regime. The TC activity in the south-western Caribbean changed in general from a stable and less active stage (100–900 CE) to a more active and variable state (1,100 CE-modern).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caribbean cyclone activity: an annually-resolved Common Era record

Schmitt

Gischler

Anselmetti

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…The record of hurricanes is also controversial in any coastal karstic environment. Brown et al (2014) studied Laguna Chumkop o, in a coastal karst basin in the eastern coast of Yucat an Peninsula, and showed that only one of the three last intense events [Hurricanes Gilbert (1988), Emily (2005 and Wilma (2005)] was recorded in the sediment (Gilbert 1988) as a fining-upward sequence.…”

Section: Hurricanes In the Yucat An Peninsulamentioning

confidence: 99%

An extreme wave event in eastern Yucatán, Mexico: Evidence of a palaeotsunami event during the Mayan times

et al. 2019

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The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, has typically been considered a tectonically stable region with little significant seismic activity. The region though, is one that is regularly affected by hurricanes. A detailed survey of ca 100 km of the eastern Yucatán and Cozumel coast identified the presence of ridges containing individual boulders measuring >1 m in length. The boulder ridges reach 5 m in height and their origin is associated with extreme wave event activity. Previously modelled tsunami waves from known seismically active zones in the region (Muertos Thrust Belt and South Caribbean Deformed Belt) are not of sufficient scale in the area of the Yucatán Peninsula to have produced the boulder ridges recorded in this study. The occurrence of hurricanes in this region is more common, but two of the most destructive (Hurricane Gilbert 1988 and Hurricane Wilma 2005) produced coastal waves too small to have created the ridges recorded here. In this paper, a new tsunami model with a source area located on the Motagua/Swan Island Fault System has been generated that indicates a tsunami event may have caused the extreme wave events that resulted in the deposition of the boulder ridges.

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“…Some prominent examples of blue holes with anoxic bottom waters are the Great Blue Hole, Belize (Gischler et al, ), South Andros Black Hole, Bahamas (Schwabe & Herbert, ), blue holes in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (Backshall et al, ), and the Clipperton Atoll blue hole, Île de Clipperto (Sachet, ). Blue holes can also preserve scientifically significant sedimentary archives of environmental change and hurricanes (e.g., Gischler et al, ; Tamalavage et al, ; Collins et al, ; Brown et al, ; van Hengstum et al, , , , ; Wallace et al, ) and may serve as natural laboratories for studying extreme chemicophysical gradients in aquatic ecosystems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Cycling in the World's Deepest Blue Hole

et al. 2020

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Blue holes are unique geomorphological features with steep biogeochemical gradients and distinctive microbial communities. Carbon cycling in blue holes, however, remains poorly understood. Here we describe potential mechanisms of dissolved carbon cycling in the world's deepest blue hole, the Yongle Blue Hole (YBH), which was recently discovered in the South China Sea. In the YBH, we found some of the lowest concentrations (e.g., 22 μM) and oldest ages (e.g., 6,810 years before present) of dissolved organic carbon, as well as the highest concentrations (e.g., 3,090 μM) and the oldest ages (e.g., 8,270 years before present) of dissolved inorganic carbon observed in oceanic waters. Sharp gradients of dissolved oxygen, H2S, and CH4 and changes in bacterially mediated sulfur cycling with depth indicated that sulfur‐ and/or methane‐based metabolisms are closely linked to carbon cycling in the YBH. Our results showed that the YBH is a unique and easily accessible natural laboratory for examining carbon cycling in anoxic systems, which has potential for understanding carbon dynamics in both paleo and modern oceans—particularly in the context of global change.

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A Coastal Yucatan Sinkhole Records Intense Hurricane Events

Cited by 37 publications

References 48 publications

Caribbean cyclone activity: an annually-resolved Common Era record

Caribbean cyclone activity: an annually-resolved Common Era record

An extreme wave event in eastern Yucatán, Mexico: Evidence of a palaeotsunami event during the Mayan times

Carbon Cycling in the World's Deepest Blue Hole

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