Characterization of Tsunami and Palaeo-tsunami deposits in the Neil Island, South Andaman, India

Abstract

The nature of tsunamigenic and palaeo-tsunamigenic sediments in Neil Island, deposited by the great Indian Ocean in 2004 is documented herein. Pit, trench and core samples were collected from the four beaches, namely, Bharatpur, Ramnagar, Sitapur and Lakshmanpur; which exhibit distinguished anomalies in the sedimentological parameters, viz. skewness, kurtosis and standard deviation at various depths. The palaeontological study shows the simultaneous occurrence of characteristic benthic taxa of near-shore environment and upper part of continental slope along with the open ocean dweller planktic foraminifera- an intermixed foraminiferal assemblage is mainly due to the tsunami wave actions. The multiproxy approach reveals the occurrence of the tsunami and palaeo-tsunami deposits in Neil Island from 9 to 40 cm and below 60 cm depth, respectively.