Chapter 1 - Geological records of tsunamis and other extreme waves: concepts, applications and a short history of research

Abstract

Increasing population and economic pressures along the world's coastlines have made, and are continuing to make coastal communities more vulnerable to hazards. The hazard management of tsunamis and other extreme waves (storm waves, seiches, infragravity waves) is based on the assessment of the frequency-magnitude relationship of these events, which uses instrumental, historical and, critically for the evaluation of long-term recurrence patterns, geological evidence. The identification of tsunami deposits in coastal sedimentary environments is challenging and has systematically evolved as a subdiscipline of sedimentology only over the last. 30 years (i.e., paleotsunami research). Nevertheless, a wide range of field sampling methods, proxy analyses, and dating approaches have been successfully applied to identify tsunami deposition in different sedimentary environments and infer tsunami impacts in the past. This compendium summarizes the state of the art in paleotsunami research in an effort to provide detailed methodological insights and aims at guiding workflows and site-specific research designs.