Giant tsunami swept through New York City 2, 000 years ago

Paul bristolia at yahoo.com
Tue May 5 23:21:49 EDT 2009

Larry wrote:


>We actually talked about this at "asteroid lunch" yesterday!

>The case against a tsunami is that there is no other evidence

>anywhere along the US coast or on the other side of the

>Atlantic. Skeptics think that it could >just as easily been a

>huge hurricane storm surge. Do not know much more than that.


A related paper might be:

Scileppi, E., and J. P. Donnelly, 2006, Sedimentary evidence
of hurricane strikes in western Long Island, New York.
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. vol. 8, no. 6, Q06011,
doi:10.1029/2006GC001463.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GC001463.shtml

https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/bitstream/1912/1786/1/2006GC001463.pdf

The abstract to this paper reads:

“Multiple washovers laid down between 2200 and 900 cal
yr B.P. suggest an interval of frequent intense hurricane
landfalls in the region.”

The text states:

“Numerous sand layers preserved in this core are tentatively
dated to 2200–900 cal yr B.P. and pre-2800 cal yr B.P.
(Figure 11)."

Unfortunately, they do not have specific dates for specific
overwash events. It might be interesting to see if any of the
sands beds within the lowermost part of this interval just
above its 2200 cal yr BP start differs noticeably from all of
the others in thickness, grain size, or some other physical
characteristics.

Jeffrey P. Donnelly’s web page is at:

http://www.whoi.edu/hpb/Site.do?id=248

In it, there is listed the citation of a paper that has been
submitted for publication. It is:

Boldt, K.V., P. Lane, J.D. Woodruff, and J.P. Donnelly,
submitted, Sedimentary evidence of hurricane-induced coastal
flooding in southeastern New England over the last two
millennia: Geophysical Research Letters.

Maybe this papers might have some answers.

Also, if there is enough interest, someone in your
"asteroid lunch" group could email Dr. Jeffrey P. Donnelly
and see what his professional opinion is of the tsunami
interpretation.

Best Regards,

Paul H.