Tropical Field Season Part II

I apologize for the big blogging slump over the last month and a half, when I returned to Austin after a two month field season in the Solomon Islands. An extremely tight schedule, including visa appointments, a paper submission, three AGU abstracts and much progress on my Gulf of Mexico sediment cores, is to blame for this hiatus (apart from procrastination). It's been one hectic July for me! So, it is quite ironic that my subsequent blog post is from back in the Solomon Islands!

We (Fred Taylor and I) left the Solomons in the last week of June after collecting many uplifted (dead) coral samples on land (with rock hammer and chisel) that were indicative of previous uplift events (earthquakes). We also found several huge (living) coral microatolls in shallow water that hold the keys to the amounts of vertical deformation pre-earthquake and post-earthquake. However, in order to read these microatolls, we need to cut them open - which takes more than a hammer and chisel. In fact, it requires a hydraulic/gas-powered drill/saw system - in other words, a lot of equipment (it clocked in at just over one tonne). Unfortunately, as things go awry when you're in the field, our equipment did not make it here last time and we were told that the shipment would arrive only two months later (it was sitting at the Brisbane dock waiting for a ship - the Kopoko Chief came to the rescue!) This is why we are back in the Western Province, Solomon Islands - and now, we have our equipment. Corals beware, we are armed!

Jumping right into it, a week ago, we were in the Florida Islands, a short boat ride away from Honiara, and cut open a bunch of microatolls. As these islands are relatively devoid of neotectonic activity, these corals will aid us in seperating the oceanographic signal (ENSO, sea-level rise etc.) from the tectonic signal (deformation of the land, earthquakes) that we see in the corals of the Western Province. Hauling the hydraulic chain-saw around (the selected weapon of choice) was quite an ordeal but it was no match for the logistical mess that we would endure while leaving for the Western Province.

Originally, we were scheduled to head west aboard the Pelican Express 2, a slick passenger vessel that would reach Gizo, our destination in the Western Province, in a mean 12 hours. This ship was to leave the Honiara dock at 7AM sharp on Sunday. All of our equipment (including the hydraulic chainsaw/drill, gas-powered chainsaw/drill and assorted tools) was at the Solomon Islands Geology Dept., a good 3km away from the dock. We were staying at the United Church Rest House, close to the dock. So, all we needed to do was: wake up early, wait for our truck (which we had already 'booked'), head over to the dept. and haul our equipment to the dock. Simple, right? On our part, we were awake and ready to go at 4:45AM. Our driver who presumably woke up late after a long night, reached the United Rest House at 6:15AM, after much pandemonium from our side while we had already tried to flag down several passing trucks (mind you, loading a tonne of equipment on a truck and unloading it takes a lot of time). But, finally, he had arrived! Crisis averted, right? Well, on the way to the Geology Dept., the truck spluttered, hemmed and hawed and finally came to an ominous stop a good kilometer away - it had run out of diesel! We were stranded on the way up a hill without fuel and without any passing traffic. It was 6:25AM. We still had a lot of work to do and there was only 35 mins for the Pelican Express to leave!

Slabbing a huge ~8m microatoll at Olasana Lagoon, southeast Ghizo

Standing on that hill, forlorn and distraught, ultimately, we hypothesized about the worst-case scenario (not a bad thing to do when one does field work): we don't find a truck to the department in the next 15 mins, go get diesel from the nearest petrol bunk (a cool 5km away), drive to the Geology Dept., load our gear and get it to the dock, forget about the Pelican Express and look to board a later ship. And this was exactly how it played out, resulting in a loss of money and time. The Fair Glory took off from the Honiara dock at 10:00AM, giving us plenty of time to load our equipment and a long 27 hrs later, we made it to Gizo.

At Gizo, we've been staying at the PT 109 restaurant - named after JFK's destroyer boat that was wrecked not far away, 70 years ago. We've been here for four days, cutting and slabbing coral microatolls and it already seems like a month! Each day is a battle against the sun and those tough, tough corals. However, looking at a cut slab is like opening a present - you never know what you're going to get! Depending on internet availability, I'll try to periodically update the blog on the interesting geology we chance upon.

Western Solomons Field Summary

Fred and I found some pretty good-sized coral microatolls (like the one I'm standing on). This was at Mbava Island, Vella Lavella and all these corals were killed by the 2007 8.1Mw earthquake.

After spending a total of 52 days of field work in the Solomon Islands, Fred and I begin our long journey back to Austin, Texas tomorrow. The past ~8 weeks have been a phenomenal experience for me: from the people, their cuisine, and language, the surrounding flora and fauna to the science. The science especially has been truly wonderful. In this region, despite it being relatively devoid of technological investment in complex earthquake monitoring equipment, I’m convinced that corals hold many answers to questions pertaining to the seismic cycle and related processes. These answers could prove useful to the advancement of scientific knowledge on earthquakes as well as policy directed towards hazard management (for earthquakes and tsunamis), not only in the Western Solomon Islands but globally.

Even though our initial field plan was nothing close to what was actually executed, I would say that we have thus far been largely successful (no crocodile bites even). We have found large coral microatolls that (we believe) hold the key to intricate vertical motions of the land over a complete earthquake cycle. We have also found intact, in-situ, paleo-uplifted coral on land that will shed light on earthquake recurrence, arc segmentation and megathrust ruptures.

Geological field work in the deep tropics is tough, tough work and there are many challenges. One of the biggest hurdles aside from all the critters, bad weather and logistics is accepting that the ideal sample cannot be found! Slowly you realize that the ones you’ve already found aren’t all that bad. All in all, my Solomon Islands experience has been fantastic with all its ups and downs.

As they say in pidgin, “Solomon Islands hemi barava naice! Tenkio tumas iufala evriwan!”

Corals and Earthquakes

Standing on the largest uplifted Porites head we’ve found thus far (Fred says it ranks in the top 5 he’s ever seen in his career!) – spanning a cool 11m. This was on a lagoon at an uninhabited island, Ghoi at northern Ranongga

Fred, Alison and I have been in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands for three weeks now (and the Solomon Islands for five). The Western Province is unique as it is one of the only pieces of land in the world that lies so close to a subduction zone, where oceanic lithosphere is devoured. However, this process of subduction is not smooth. At times, the down-going plate gets locked with the upper plate and when the stress is too much, the result is a rupture: an earthquake. Close to the trench where this subduction occurs, the upper plate gets uplifted during an earthquake (coseismic uplift) and further out, past the hingeline, the land subsides (coseismic subsidence). The last big earthquake in this region was a magnitude 8.1 in 2007. This was associated with a tsunami which reached heights up to 15m in certain locations. There were around 60 causalities. What about before 2007? Nobody knows. There are no known large earthquakes in the instrumental record, which spans a hundred odd years (the Brits were keeping record). 2007 was the first of its sort. Now, this is a scary thought! How frequently do earthquakes occur here? How large can they get? Has 2007 been the biggest, baddest one ever? One must look to the past to obtain perspective for the future. Corals that grow near shallow water are fantastic tools that give us clues to these questions.

Ancient coral reef that has become part of the island

The Solomon Islands is located in the Western Pacific Warm Pool where the climate is amiable for corals and coral reefs. They need warm water to thrive. Corals are found in deep and shallow water. They start from a point on suitable ground and grow outward, leaving behind secreted calcium carbonate. The colored outer portion of the coral is the only ‘level’ where they are alive (note: the color comes from the symbiotic zooxanthella algae and not the coral itself) – everything inside is aragonitic rock. If bioerosion is not too brutal on the corals, the corals can build microatolls and live for many centuries, becoming bigger and bigger from that point source. However, depending on the tides, there is a particular highest level of survival (HLS, as christened by Fred) for the corals. They can only grow in water so shallow. If the water is too shallow and the tide is too low during the day, the corals can die from being exposed under the sun. Therefore, sea-level changes (for example those associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation) can kill corals. When they are killed there is no outer ‘level’ which is alive – CaCO3 rock is left behind. This too disappears through erosion depending on the environment (so, hunting for well-preserved ones is tough!) However, there is another way corals can die – earthquakes. With the latter, they are lifted out of the water, above their HLS and soon die out. Nevertheless, they can continue to stay alive and grow on the sides and bottom ends of the coral mound if they are still underwater i.e. the uplift wasn’t enough to thwart the entire coral head outside the HLS. There are many complications apart from the two-dimensional sea-level/seismicity issue such as repeated rapid subsidence and subsequent coseismic uplift, global sea-level rise, local effects and so on. In any case, by seeking out microatolls at various places we can piece together the clues they offer and learn more about earthquakes and eventually, subduction related processes.

Hiking through pristine coastal forest

Our main purpose in the Western Province is two-fold. One is to find coral microatolls that uplifted or subsided during the 2007 earthquake and understand how permanent deformation is retained (how much is coseismic, aseismic etc.) This mainly consists of offshore field work: we haul our 40HP outboard motor with Alison’s ≈3m canoe and go around looking for coral heads (be it via snorkeling or paddling) with the tropical sun beating down on us. We benefit from this as we can measure net post- (or pre-) seismic subsidence, understand ‘permanent’ anelastic uplift and so on. Our other intention is to find paleo-uplifted corals or corals uplifted by large earthquakes in the geologically recent past (≈2000 yrs ago) which (due to uplift) become part of the land itself. This gives us insights into the inner workings of the earthquake cycle through its frequency and magnitude. As you can imagine, this entails field work on land: hiking through thick, pristine, coastal rainforest in all its glory (bugs, thorns and topography included), we search (and search) for suitable, intact and preferentially in-situ paleo-coral reefs. By dating these (preferably with precise uranium/thorium dating) intact corals, we can glean information about paleo-earthquakes. Over the last three weeks, gradually, we’re working our way through this project: lagoon by lagoon, forest by forest, reef by reef and island by island, one day at a time!