Stratigraphical evidence of Late Holocene barrier breaching and extreme storms in lagoonal sediments of Ria Formosa, Algarve, Portugal

Stratigraphical, sedimentological and paleoecological studies undertaken in lagoonal sediments of the Ria Formosa barrier lagoon indicate that a number of present-day aligned beaches outcropping within the marsh and detached from mainland (marsh detached beaches, MDB) represent the remnants of former ephemeral flood deltas, which established following barrier breaching induced by extreme storms from circa 1270 BC onwards. Dating of these beaches suggests that they resulted from multiple events of flooding separated both in time and space. Repeated emplacement of tidal deltas following overwash of the same location of the barrier is represented in the stratigraphical record by buried and partly overlapping marsh beaches. It is suggested that further refinement of the data presented in this paper and the extension of the stratigraphic survey to the entire lagoonal space will substantiate the usefulness of the stratigraphic record as a proxy to hindcast a time series of extreme storminess extending far beyond the instrumental and historical records.