Combining inland and offshore paleotsunamis evidence: the Augusta Bay (eastern Sicily, ITALY) case study

Abstract

We present the geological evidence for a 4000 year-long record of repeated tsunami events along the coast of the Augusta Bay derived from the combination of inland and offshore cores data. The research was carried out through a multi-theme approach which benefited from an long historical record that we used to guide detailed geomorphologic, geologic, and geophysical surveys,that were performed both inland and offshore. These surveys served to locate and characterize the best sites were to perform the coring collection that where studied through and several laboratory analyses. The Augusta Bay represents a unique case study because besides showing a long record of paleotsunami events, it contains the first inland and offshore evidence for the Crete AD 365, and Santorini Late Minoan tsunamis in the central-western Mediterranean area.