Andreas Peffekover

Areas of interest

"Deciphering millennial-scale geological records of tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the Western North Pacific"

Coastal hazards such as storm surges and tsunamis constitute a major threat for many coastal areas worldwide. With an average of 40 storms per year, the Western North Pacific is the most active tropical cyclone basin in the world and is also susceptible to earthquakes and the impacts of near- and far-field tsunamis. However, our current understanding of such coastal hazards is mostly limited to the short-term instrumental record (i.e. the last ~75 years). Utilizing the long-term geological record allows to overcome this temporal limitation and to detect potential linkages to both driving (e.g. climate) and trigger (e.g. seismic) mechanisms of extreme wave events.

My research aims to decipher the long-term frequency-magnitude patterns of storm- and tsunami-induced extreme wave events in the Western North Pacific using a multi-proxy approach involving sedimentological, geochemical, micropaleontological and geochronological analyses on sediment cores collected from remote islands in Micronesia and the Philippines. Achieving robust reconstructions will deepen our knowledge and understanding of extreme wave events, constituting the framework for future strategies of coastal protection in the Western North Pacific.