14C-Dated Charcoal and Sediment Drilling Cores as First Evidence of Holocene Tsunamis at the Southern Spanish Coast

Abstract

At 2 locations of the southern Spanish coast, we found indications for tsunamis induced by submarine earthquakes. Charcoal, which we sampled in 2 stratified, assumed tsunamigenic sediment (tsunamites) layers at the shore outside the ruins of the Roman city of Baelo Claudia, close to the Strait of Gibraltar (province of Cádiz), and radiocarbon dated, surprisingly turned out to be of identical age, about 465 BP. In the laguna of the Cabo de Gata (province of Almera), we found possible remnants of tsunamites in drilling cores deposited above organic sediments, 14C dated as 680 +/- 30 BP.