High-resolution late Holocene sedimentary cores record the long history of the city of Cádiz (south-western Spain)

Abstract

Abstract. Today, coastal cities worldwide are facing major changes resulting from climate change and anthropogenic forcing, which requires adaptation and mitigation strategies to be established. In this context, sedimentological archives in many Mediterranean cities record a multi-millennial history of environmental dynamics and human adaptation, revealing a long-lasting resilience. Founded by the Phoenicians around 3000 years ago, Cádiz (south-western Spain) is a key example of a coastal resilient city. This urban centre is considered to be one of the first cities of western Europe and has experienced major natural hazards during its long history, such as coastal erosion, storms, and also tsunamis (like the one in 1755 CE following the destructive Lisbon earthquake). In the framework of an international, joint archaeological and geoarchaeological project, three cores have been drilled in a marine palaeochannel that ran through the ancient city of Cádiz. These cores reveal a ≥50 m thick Holocene sedimentary sequence. Importantly, most of the deposits date from the 1st millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE. This exceptional sedimentary archive will allow our scientific team to achieve its research goals, which are (1) to reconstruct the palaeogeographical evolution of this specific coastal area; (2) to trace the intensity of activities of the city of Cádiz based on archaeological data, as well as geochemical and palaeoecological indicators; and (3) to identify and date high-energy event deposits such as storms and tsunamis.

Eritía, la isla menor: el suburbium occidental de Gades

“…3: B). Recientemente, nuevos estudios realizados en el edificio Valcárcel por un grupo interdisciplinar encabezado por el Grupo de Investigación HUM-440 de la Universidad de Cádiz y de la Université de Strasbourg/ CNRS, han confirmado, por un lado, la existencia de un fondeadero de época fenicia y romana a más de 25 m de profundidad bajo la rasante actual, con una sedimentación de una incalculable riqueza arqueológica; y, por otro, que el canal estuvo totalmente abierto y operativo durante la Protohistoria y la Antigüedad Clásica (Bernal-Casasola et al, 2020a;2020b;Salomon et al, 2020) como ilustramos en la figura 3: C. Es decir, que durante todo el período romano existieron dos islas, siendo ese el paisaje que vieron los Cornelios Balbos y los gaditanos hasta finales de la Antigüedad Clásica.…”

GEOLOGY WITHOUT BORDERS - 90° Congresso della Società Geologica Italiana

“…The Bay of Cádiz, located in the South Atlantic Iberian margin, is constituted by low-lying coasts, mainly made of sandy barriers and salt marshes, that during the Holocene were affected by erosional and progradational episodes, with the development of subsequent beach ridge systems. The aim of this study is to reconstruct the Holocene coastal morphoevolution of the Bay of Cádiz in terms of relative sea-level (RSL) variations and related vertical displacements (VDs) considering different types of stratigraphic sea-level markers (SLMs) from new boreholes and bibliographic data (Dabrio et al, 2000;Arteaga et al, 2008;Alonso et al, 2015;Salomon et al, 2020;Caporizzo et al, 2021) located within the emerged sector of the study area. Along the stratigraphic successions, different depositional environments were detected.…”

A Method for the Definition of Local Vulnerability Domains to Climate Change and Relate Mapping. Two Case Studies in Southern Italy

“…They include global mean surface temperature, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content, global sea level, ocean acidification, sea-ice extent and the mass balance of glaciers and ice sheets. Literature shows that extreme weather events [25][26][27][28][29][30], induced by the increase in temperature and the reduction of precipitation, increase the probability of the occurrence of disaster risks as hurricanes [31][32][33][34], typhoons [35], storms [36][37][38], floods [26,39,40], drought [41][42][43], landslides [44][45][46], fires [47,48], heat waves [49][50][51]. Climate change alters the level of danger, that is, the probability that a phenomenon occurs in a certain place with a certain intensity and in a certain time period.…”