IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v77y2015i1p445-460.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marine biomarkers deposited on coastal land by the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami

Author

Listed:
  • Tetsuya Shinozaki
  • Shigehiro Fujino
  • Minoru Ikehara
  • Yuki Sawai
  • Toru Tamura
  • Kazuhisa Goto
  • Daisuke Sugawara
  • Tomoya Abe

Abstract

To determine how and what kind of marine-sourced biomarkers are transported and deposited on land by tsunami, we collected and analyzed samples of the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami deposits and the underlying and overlying soil at Sendai and Odaka, in northeast Japan. Characteristic hydrocarbons, such as short-chain n-alkanes, pristane, and phytane, were detected only in soil layers 0–2 cm below the tsunami deposits at both sites. Dinosterol originated from dinoflagellates was detected in a mud layer overlying sand deposits in Odaka. Such characteristic biomarkers were not detected in soil layers deeper than 2 cm beneath the tsunami deposits at either site, and none was found in the surface soil layer overlying the tsunami deposit in Odaka. Therefore, it is probable that the biomarkers were transported and deposited by the tsunami. The sand layer was highly permeable and low in clay or organic matter to which biomarkers could bind. Any biomarkers deposited with the sand probably leached into the underlying soil or were found in sediments richer in clay and organic matter such as tsunamigenic mud. Sediment samples were collected more than 2 years after the tsunami, indicating that the marine-sourced biomarkers were preserved for at least 2 years in the soil. In addition, a comparative analysis of sediment samples collected earlier indicated that characteristic biomarkers did not remain in the sand layer 3 months after the tsunami. These findings show the potential of using biomarkers as proxies to identify marine-sourced deposits on coastal land. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Tetsuya Shinozaki & Shigehiro Fujino & Minoru Ikehara & Yuki Sawai & Toru Tamura & Kazuhisa Goto & Daisuke Sugawara & Tomoya Abe, 2015. "Marine biomarkers deposited on coastal land by the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 77(1), pages 445-460, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:77:y:2015:i:1:p:445-460
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-015-1598-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-015-1598-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-015-1598-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shinzaburo Ozawa & Takuya Nishimura & Hisashi Suito & Tomokazu Kobayashi & Mikio Tobita & Tetsuro Imakiire, 2011. "Coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2011 magnitude-9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake," Nature, Nature, vol. 475(7356), pages 373-376, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mike Frenken & Piero Bellanova & Yuichi Nishimura & Klaus Reicherter & Jan Schwarzbauer, 2022. "Distribution of the geochemical signature caused by the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami in Misawa harbor, northern Japan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 114(1), pages 313-333, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kai Zhang & Yanru Wang & Yu Luo & Dineng Zhao & Mingwei Wang & Fanlin Yang & Ziyin Wu, 2023. "Complex tsunamigenic near-trench seafloor deformation during the 2011 Tohoku–Oki earthquake," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Cunpeng Du & Haitao Yin & Shengwen Yu & Le Yang & Yuan Jia, 2023. "Effects of the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake on the Locking Characteristics and Seismic Risk of the Yishu Fault Zone in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-20, February.
    3. Norio Matsumoto & Naoji Koizumi, 2013. "Recent hydrological and geochemical research for earthquake prediction in Japan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 69(2), pages 1247-1260, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:77:y:2015:i:1:p:445-460. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.