Sometime between 1381 and 1391, an earthquake exceeding magnitude 8.0 rocked the northeastern Caribbean and sent a tsunami barreling toward the island of Anegada.
Sometime between 1381 and 1391, an earthquake exceeding magnitude 8.0 rocked the northeastern Caribbean and sent a tsunami barreling toward the island of Anegada.
Flooding scattered debris across the island, depositing coral boulders hundreds of meters inland. The corals died but their skeletons remain. More than six centuries later, scientists are learning that these skeletons hold clues about tsunami history. Computer models showed the flooding likely resulted from a tsunami generated during a large earthquake in the nearby Puerto Rico Trench.
Now, in an open-access paper recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers narrow the tsunami time frame to the last decades of the 14th century. The researchers expect this finding to support ongoing efforts to prepare for future Caribbean tsunamis.
Read More: University of Washington
Image: An earthquake between 1381 and 1391 triggered a tsunami in the northeastern Caribbean sea that stranded large coral boulders hundreds of meters inland on Anegada, the northernmost of the British Virgin Islands. A new University of Washington-led study dates the event based on analyses of the coral. Co-author Robert Halley is pictured beside a specimen.Brian Atwater/United States Geological Survey
