Abstract

On September 16, 2015, a Mw 8.3 earthquake struck the north-central Chile coast, triggering a tsunami observed along 500 km of coastline, between Huasco (28.5 degrees S) and San Antonio (33.5 degrees S). This tsunami provided a unique opportunity to examine the nature of tsunami deposits in a semi-arid, siliciclastic environment where stratigraphic and sedimentological records of past tsunamis are difficult to distinguish. To improve our ability to identify such evidence, we targeted one of the few low-energy, organicrich depositional environments in north-central Chile: Pachingo marsh in Tongoy Bay (30.3 degrees S).