Ancient tsunami shaped Mexico's luxury coast

John Hopton for redOrbit.com – @Johnfinitum

A giant tsunami may have hammered the eastern coastline of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula between 1,500 and 900 years ago, in an area now home to a number of lavish resort communities and villages inhabited by some 1.4 million people.

A new study involving Mexico’s Centro Ecological Akumal (CEA) and the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that there are several lines of evidence for an ancient tsunami, most significantly a large, wedge-shaped berm about 15 feet above sea level paved with “washing machine-sized” stones.

The berm is set back in some places more than a quarter of a mile from the shore and stretches for at least 30 miles, tracking the rocky headlands and crescent beaches of the Caribbean coast near the luxury resorts of Playa del Carmen and Cancun.

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“I was quite shocked when I first walked these headlands and saw this large berm paved with boulders running long distances in both directions,” said CEA scientist Charles Shaw. “My initial thought was that a huge wave came through here in the past, and it must have packed quite a punch.”

Ripping up the seafloor

The tsunami is thought to have ripped up reef material from the seafloor and deposited it far above the shoreline as evidence of its colossal power. “We think the tsunami wave height was at least 15 feet and potentially much higher than that,” said Shaw.

A paper on the subject by Shaw and Larry Benson, an adjunct curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, was published online this week in the Journal of Coastal Research.

The researchers also found “outlier berms” spanning around 125 miles along the Yucatan coastline, suggesting that the tsunami impacted a very large region. “I think there is a chance this tsunami affected the entire Yucatan coast,” said Benson.

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A possible alternative explanation for some of the features is a “super typhoon”, but Shaw asks: “If hurricanes can build these types of berms, why is there only a single berm off the Yucatan coast given the numerous hurricanes that have made landfall there over the past century?” He adds that: “That is a big part of our argument for a tsunami wave. We think we have the pieces of evidence we need for this event to have occurred.”

The past raises concerns for the future

Further evidence involves radiocarbon dating of peat beneath the extensive berm, which indicates a tsunami consisting of two or even three giant waves. In addition, ruins of Post-Classic Mayan structures built between A.D. 900 and 1200 were found on top of parts of the berm, indicating that the tsunami occurred prior to that time.

While the suspected tsunami may have added to the appeal of the coastline today, evidence of it raises concerns about future events.

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“If such an event occurs in the future, it would wreak havoc along the built-up coastline, probably with a great loss of life,” said Benson. However, geological evidence counts only 37 tsunamis in the Caribbean basin since 1492, and hurricanes are a much greater threat to the region.

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Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113348354/ancient-tsunami-shaped-mexicos-luxury-coast-030815/