Holocene history of the El Niño phenomenon as recorded in flood sediments of northern coastal Peru

Significant precipitation along the north-central coast of Peru (lat 5°-10°S) occurs exclusively during El Niño incursions of warm water into the Peruvian littoral. Flood deposits from this region therefore provide a proxy record of extreme El Niño events. I present a 3500 yr chronology of the extre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology (Boulder) 1990-11, Vol.18 (11), p.1134-1137
Main Author: Wells, Lisa E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
absolute age
alluvium
Casma
Cenozoic
charcoal
clastic sediments
Climate
dates
El Nino
floodplains
Floods
fluvial features
geochronology
Holocene
Marine
northern Peru
ocean circulation
oceanography
Oceans
Pacific Ocean
paleo-oceanography
paleocirculation
paleoclimatology
paleocurrents
paleogeography
Peru
Quaternary
Quaternary geology
Rio Casma
Rio Sechin
sediments
South America
Weather
Wind
wood
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Summary:Significant precipitation along the north-central coast of Peru (lat 5°-10°S) occurs exclusively during El Niño incursions of warm water into the Peruvian littoral. Flood deposits from this region therefore provide a proxy record of extreme El Niño events. I present a 3500 yr chronology of the extreme events based on radiocarbon dating of overbank flood sediments from the Rio Casma (lat 9.2°S).The flood-plain stratigraphy suggests that the El Niño phenomenon has occurred throughout the Holocene and that flood events much larger than that which occurred during 1982-1983 occur here at least once every 1000 yr.
ISSN:0091-7613
1943-2682
DOI:10.1130/0091-7613(1990)018<1134:HHOTEN>2.3.CO;2