RAPID: Characterizing Inundation and Sediment Transport Associated with Hurricane Michael: A Modern Analog for Paleo-Hurricane Reconstructions

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1902463
	RAPID: Characterizing Inundation and Sediment Transport Associated with Hurricane Michael: A Modern Analog for Paleo-Hurricane Reconstructions
	Jeffrey Donnelly (Principal Investigator)
主持机构	Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
项目开始年	2018
	2018-11-15
项目结束日期	2019-10-31
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Standard Grant
项目经费	51285(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	Current efforts to understand the driving mechanisms responsible for modulating hurricane activity are significantly hampered by a short instrumental record of hurricane occurrence. Proxy records based on overwash layers deposited in coastal ponds and marshes provide a means of extending our knowledge of hurricane strikes back thousands of years. These paleo-records allow us to elucidate millennial and centennial scale patterns in hurricane activity and explore the mechanisms that drive changes in hurricane activity. Several of these reconstructions have been developed from the Panhandle of Florida and have extended our knowledge of hurricane activity in the area back more than 4000 years. However, well documented modern analogs are needed to help interpret the long term records. The landfall of Hurricane Michael on the panhandle of Florida in October 2018 provided an opportunity to investigate the character of overwash deposits associated with a category 4 strike. This research will examine sedimentological and landscape changes at three coastal sinkhole ponds on Bald Point, Florida, a location that is about 100 km from the center of where Hurricane Michael came ashore. The work will use elevation data and material from new sediment cores, taken from the ponds, and compare this information to results from longer term sedimentological records of previous studies from the same ponds. Results of this research will help constrain the character of prehistoric events that left deposits in the region over the past several millennia. Broader impacts of the work include increasing knowledge for use by federal disaster agencies, insurance companies, coastal managers, and communities about the probability and timing of major storm strikes on the Florida panhandle which should assist in better land and disaster planning. Impacts also include graduate student training and public outreach via lectures and conversations with community leaders. The latter outreach has strong potential for project media coverage. There is presently an insufficient understanding of what drives variability of hurricane activity on multidecadal and longer timescales due to the limited, in time and space, instrumental record of these strong storm events. Geologic proxies such as overwash layers preserved in coastal depositional settings provide an essential tool for examining hurricane variability in prehistory. This research involves the collection of drone-based aerial data and land surveys to examine geomorphic and elevation changes resulting from the storm and its storm surge. It also involves the collection of sediment cores on Bald Point on the Florida panhandle within 100 km of Mexico Beach where the eye of Hurricane Michael came ashore in October of 2018. Sediment sampling and surveys will be carried out at three coastal sinkhole ponds that have been previously studied: Little Tucker, Mullet, and Shotgun. Data collected in this study will be compared with the baseline data from these three sites, some of which includes LIDAR (LIght Detecting and Ranging) aircraft elevation surveys taken in 2010. Hurricane Michael sediment cores will be taken and samples will be examined for grain size, event-bed deposition, and clast composition. They will also be examined for the tests of microfossils, like foraminifera, ripped from the seabed. The latter data will provide insights into the extent and force of seabed wave/tide erosion and marine sediment transport during the storm. Questions to be addressed include: storm intensity and how that is recorded in the geological record and how close a storm needs to come to a site to result in event-bed deposition. Studies of modern analogs, such as the deposits left behind by Hurricane Michael, are essential for being able to correctly interpret the sediment record at this and other localities . It will also provide long-term reconstruction of strong storm events in the area and findings and protocols that may be applicable more widely. By characterizing the level of inundation and degree of sediment transport to the three targeted study sites, the project will be able to better interpret the nature of strong hurricane/storm events deposited over the last 4 millennia on the Florida panhandle. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/73607
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Jeffrey Donnelly .RAPID: Characterizing Inundation and Sediment Transport Associated with Hurricane Michael: A Modern Analog for Paleo-Hurricane Reconstructions.2018.