The imprint of tsunami in Quaternary coastal sediments of Southeastern Australia

TL and 14C dating has revealed anomalous chronostratigraphies at two sites on the coast of southern New South Wales, Australia, where Pleistocene sands have been driven onshore over Holocene estuarine deposits. Lack of solar bleaching of the TL component which occurs in normal swash zones, an identical TL age obtained from pumice incorporated in the Pleistocene deposit, and boulders scattered through the sand are indicative of tsunami impact. These observations prompt reassessment of the strictly uniformitarian models of barrier emplacement during the Holocene transgression both in eastern Australia and elsewhere in the world where tsunami are a possibility.