title: Preliminary evidence for a 1000-year-old tsunami in the South China Sea.
abstract: The risk of large, devastating tsunamis in the South China Sea and its surrounding coastal region is commonly underestimated or unrecognized due to the difficulty of differentiating tsunami from storm deposits. As a consequence, few convincing records have documented tsunami deposits in this region. Here we report preliminary evidence from Xisha Islands in the South China Sea for a large tsunami around AD 1024. Sand layers in lake sediment cores and their geochemical characteristics indicate a sudden deposition event around AD 1024, temporally consistent with a written record of a disastrous event characterized by high waves in AD 1076. Heavy coral and shell fossils, which are older than AD 1024, deposited more than 200 meters into the island, further support the occurrence of a high-energy event such as a tsunami or an unusually large storm. Our results underscore the importance of acknowledging and understanding the tsunami hazard in this area.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Polar Environment, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. slg@ustc.edu.cn
authors.forename: Liguang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Zhouqing
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Zijun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Sanping
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.lastname: Da Shao
authors.forename: Wenqing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D060105:Animal Shells / Q000737:chemistry*; D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005580:Fossils; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010865:Pilot Projects; D057192:Tsunamis