This project will identify and date hurricane storm surge deposits in far southwest Louisiana's Chenier Plain. In the study area, approximately twenty beach ridges, or cheniers, separated by marshland, record about 5 km of progradation of this coastal plain over the last 2100 years. The aim of the project is to examine these deposits to establish a record of hurricane landfalls during this time interval. This will greatly extend the long-term record of hurricanes beyond the ca. 150-year historical record. Long-term hurricane records are required to improve hurricane risk assessment and to explore linkages between millennial-scale climatic variability and hurricane frequency. A series of trench and core transects will be used to examine stratigraphy, sedimentology and microfossil content of coastal plain sediments. These will be used to identify storm surge sand layers by comparison to sediments deposited in the study area by Hurricane Rita in 2005. A chronology of identified storm surge deposits will be established by radiocarbon dating of organic material collected from soils immediately underlying storm surge layers. The study will contribute a new approach to the emerging field of paleotempestology, because research in this field has focused mainly on coastal lakes and back-barrier tidal marshes and has not yet included the use of chenier plains in reconstructing hurricane history.
The devastating impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 underscore the need for more long-term hurricane records to improve hurricane risk assessment and to explore linkages between long-term climatic variability and hurricane frequency. This project will identify and date hurricane storm surge deposits in far southwest Louisiana's Chenier Plain. The aim of the project is to derive a 2100-year record of hurricane strikes that will greatly extend our knowledge of hurricane frequency beyond the current historical record. This is a topic of significance to the people who live along the Gulf Coast. In order to make the benefits of the project accessible, a display and educational module on hurricanes for the UNiversity of North Texas Eagle Exhibit Hall and Elm Fork Education Center will be developed. In addition, the study results will be used to develop an instructional module for the University of North Texas' program for future middle and high school math and science teachers.
