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The beach ridges at Santa, Peru: El Niño, uplift, and prehistory
Author(s) -
Sandweiss Daniel H.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
geoarchaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1520-6548
pISSN - 0883-6353
DOI - 10.1002/gea.3340010103
Subject(s) - geology , prehistory , ridge , sedimentary rock , paleontology , archaeology , geologic record , paleoclimatology , climate change , oceanography , geography
Recent work on the beach ridges at Santa, Peru (9° s latitude) upholds an earlier hypothesis, based on sedimentary evidence, that the ridges were formed by massive sediment pulses during rains associated with major incursions of the warm water El Niño countercurrent. The ridges can therefore be used to date major El Niño events. The alternate hypothesis for the Santa ridge origin cited minor sequential uplift as the causal factor; this hypothesis has been disproven, though one previously unreported uplift event at about 4200 years B.P. has been identified at Santa. In general, landscape alteration processes such as El Niño floods and tectonic uplift affect human populations, and accurate chronologies of these events are necessary to interpret the archaeological record. Geoarchaeological research offers the key to constructing landscape alteration chronologies, which are also of use to geologists for studies of earthquake prediction, sedimentation processes, and paleoclimatology.