A multi-proxy approach to characterizing hurricane-derived deposits in coastal and inland environments

本项目采用多代理方法，分别对受飓风相关风暴潮和河流洪水过程影响的沿海和内陆环境中的飓风衍生沉积物进行表征。飓风可以影响一个地区，造成风暴潮洪水相关的海岸沉积，以及内陆地区由于强降水导致的河流洪水。描述和分析飓风引起的现今沿海和内陆沉积物沉积物对于破译风暴沉积物的起源和理解不同环境条件下各种沉积过程的相对贡献至关重要。通过使用多种代理，本研究提供了最近一次强烈飓风在沿海和内陆环境中产生的风暴沉积物的准确描述。这项研究的结果为在地质记录中识别古代风暴沉积物提供了关键信息，从而推进了在数百年和数千年时间尺度上环境变化背景下对过去飓风活动的研究。由于飓风活动的长期记录对于准确评估当前和未来沿海社区的风险至关重要，因此从对飓风影响的深入分析中可以获得社会效益。该项目还为少数民族服务机构的学生和教师提供教育和专业发展机会。该项目的目标是评估2017年飓风“玛丽亚”路径沿线的主要沿海和陆地环境，并确定其沿海风暴潮和内河洪水沉积物的特征。这项研究确定了沿海和内陆环境中显著的飓风引起的沉积物沉积，揭示了不同地貌环境中风暴影响的严重性和地理变化，从而提供了一个现代的类比，有助于在地质记录中寻找古代飓风的证据。从一些沿海泻湖和内陆湿地收集的短岩心将进行年代学（使用Pb-210和Cs-137放射性同位素）、沉积学（使用着火损失和粒度分析）、地球化学（使用x射线荧光分析）和微古生物学（使用有孔虫和孢粉分析）分析，以确定飓风玛丽亚沉积物的特征。化学元素比率（如Cl/Br和Ca/Fe）和生物指标（特别是异形和有孔虫）将用于区分淡水洪水和盐水入侵的影响，这两种影响代表两种不同类型的环境影响。虽然这个研究项目将集中在波多黎各与飓风玛丽亚相关的沉积物上，但这项研究将为识别美国大陆其他强烈风暴对沿海和内陆环境的影响提供新的见解和方法，这有助于社会更好地为未来的这些极端事件做好准备。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project uses a multi-proxy approach to characterizing hurricane-derived deposits in coastal and inland environments impacted, respectively, by hurricane-related storm surge and river flooding processes. Hurricanes can impact a region by causing storm surge flooding related deposition along the coast as well as river flooding in inland areas due to heavy precipitation. Description and analysis of hurricane-induced present-day coastal and inland sediment deposits are vital for deciphering the origins of storm deposits and understanding the relative contribution of a variety of sedimentary processes in different environmental settings. By using multiple proxies, this study provides accurate descriptions of the storm deposits generated by a recent intense hurricane in both the coastal and inland environments. Results from this study provide critical information for identifying ancient storm deposits in the geological record, which advances the study of past hurricane activity in the context of environmental variability at timescales of centuries and millennia. From this analysis of hurricane impacts in deeper time societal benefits are derived because long-term records of hurricane activity are vital for accurate risk assessment for present and future coastal communities. The project also provides educational and professional development opportunities for students and faculty at a minority-serving institution.The objective of this project is to assess key coastal and terrestrial environments along the path of a recent hurricane, Hurricane Maria in 2017, and to identify and characterize its coastal storm surge and inland river flood deposits. This research identifies prominent hurricane-induced sediment deposition in coastal and interior environments that sheds light on the severity and geographical variation of storm impacts in different geomorphological settings, thus offering a modern analog that assists the search for the evidence of ancient hurricanes in the geological record. Short cores to be collected from a few coastal lagoons and inland wetlands will be analyzed chronologically (using Pb-210 and Cs-137 radioisotopes), sedimentologically (using loss-on-ignition and grain-size analyses), geochemically (using X-ray fluorescence analysis), and micropaleontologically (using foraminifera and palynological analyses) to identify and characterize the Hurricane Maria deposits. Chemical elemental ratios (such as Cl/Br and Ca/Fe) and biological proxies (especially palynomorphs and foraminifera) will be used to differentiate the effects of freshwater flooding versus saltwater intrusion that represent two different types of environmental impacts. Although this research project will focus on Hurricane Maria related deposits in Puerto Rico, the research will provide new insights and approaches for identifying the coastal and inland environmental impacts of other intense storms in the continental U.S., which helps society better prepare for these extreme events in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.