A multi-proxy reconstruction of past hurricane events in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico using Hurricane Maria as a modern analog

Keywords: Hurricanes, Paleotempestology, Puerto Rico, Sedimentology, Hurricane Maria
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

In 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in southern Puerto Rico as an extremely powerful category 4 hurricane. Impacts from the storm were recorded across the entire territory, including in Cabo Rojo, southwestern Puerto Rico. Cabo Rojo is a small lobed peninsula with a hypersaline lagoon located within the western lobe and is within an extremely arid region. The sedimentological effects of Hurricane Maria (both storm surge overwash deposition and precipitation induced terrestrial runoff) were recorded within the sediment column in the lagoon. Utilizing paleotempestological techniques such as loss on ignition, x-ray fluorescence, grain size analysis, and radiometric dating, data from sediment cores at this study site were used to identify not only the signature from Hurricane Maria, but also to create a chronology of older hurricane strikes and a paleoenvironmental history of the lagoon. While the lagoon is currently hypersaline and the benthos is dominated by a microbial mat, the bottom 20-30 cm of each core is made up of mangrove peat, with a sharp upper boundary into multiple fining upwards layers of sand, likely indicating multiple major disturbances that shifted the ecology of the lagoon. Near the top of the sediment column, the signature of Hurricane Maria is geochemically evident as an increase in the concentration of both marine and terrestrial indicating elements, deposited by storm surge and precipitation, respectively. This signature will act as a modern-day analog to identify past hurricane events and their general characteristics within the Cabo Rojo lagoon.