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Reconstruction of Prehistoric Landfall Frequencies of Catastrophic Hurricanes in Northwestern Florida from Lake Sediment Records

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kam-biu Liu  and
Miriam L. Fearn
Kam-biu Liu
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803
Miriam L. Fearn
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, 36688
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Abstract

Sediment cores from Western Lake provide a 7000-yr record of coastal environmental changes and catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle. Using Hurricane Opal as a modern analog, we infer that overwash sand layers occurring near the center of the lake were caused by catastrophic hurricanes of category 4 or 5 intensity. Few catastrophic hurricanes struck the Western Lake area during two quiescent periods 3400–5000 and 0–1000 14C yr B.P. The landfall probabilities increased dramatically to ca. 0.5% per yr during an “hyperactive” period from 1000–3400 14C yr B.P., especially in the first millennium A.D. The millennial-scale variability in catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast is probably controlled by shifts in the position of the jet stream and the Bermuda High.

Keywords

hurricanespaleotempestologycoastal lakeslake sedimentsoverwash eventsstorm depositsclimate variabilityGulf of Mexico
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , September 2000 , pp. 238 - 245
Copyright
University of Washington

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