Proxy Record of Holocene Hurricane Activity from Barbuda in the Northeastern Caribbean
Abstract
Sediment cores from a coastal salt pond in Barbuda at the northeastern corner of the Caribbean Basin contain multiple overwash sand layers that were deposited over the past 5000 years. The stratigraphy suggests two active periods of more frequent events during ca. 5000-2500 cal yr BP and ca. 1500-0 cal yr BP, separated by a relatively quiet period between 2500 and 1500 cal yr BP. While dating control still needs fine-tuning, the proxy data suggest that paleohurricane activity in Barbuda is broadly out of phase with that reported from the Gulf of Mexico coast, but parallels with that documented from Nobska Pond, Massachusetts. The spatial pattern of Holocene hurricane activity reconstructed from the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast, and the Northeast is consistent with the predictions of the Bermuda High hypothesis. The discrepancy between the Barbuda record and the Puerto Rico record remains to be explained.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.U14B..02L
- Keywords:
-
- 0468 Natural hazards;
- 3022 Marine sediments: processes and transport;
- 3305 Climate change and variability (1616;
- 1635;
- 3309;
- 4215;
- 4513);
- 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473;
- 4900);
- 4217 Coastal processes