First evidence of accumulation of mega boulders on the Mediterranean rocky coast of Provence (southern France) - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Année : 2011

First evidence of accumulation of mega boulders on the Mediterranean rocky coast of Provence (southern France)

Résumé

An accumulation of boulders was recently discovered along the rocky coast of the Gulf of Fos located in Provence, in an area exposed to a south-westerly wave regime. The coast around this locality forms the western extremity of the calcareous Nerthe range between Marseille and the Rhˆone Delta. Several mega blocks are scattered to a distance of 30m behind the coast line. The largest block (33.5 tonnes) has been transported about 39m inland, up to about 2ma.s.l. On the Mediterranean coast, the origin of such blocks is often attributed to tsunami-generated waves, but in the case examined here, although the origin is unclear, the differences in surface state between boulders indicates several events generated by south-westerly storms. Radiocarbon dating on several different shells collected from seven different boulders yields a wide dispersion of ages ranging from 4000 BP to the Modern Period. The differences in surface appearance, as well as the differences of fauna conservation and surface coloration, in some cases in a very fresh state, along with the dispersion of radiocarbon ages, suggest that historic storm events have affected these megablocks.

Domaines

Géomorphologie
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
vellaetal, 2011.pdf (2.78 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01471864 , version 1 (20-02-2017)

Identifiants

Citer

Claude Vella, François Demory, Victor Canut, Philippe Dussouillez, Jules Fleury. First evidence of accumulation of mega boulders on the Mediterranean rocky coast of Provence (southern France). Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2011, 11 (3), pp.905-914. ⟨10.5194/nhess-11-905-2011⟩. ⟨hal-01471864⟩
188 Consultations
146 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More