Evidence of slow millennial cliff retreat rates using cosmogenic nuclides in coastal colluvium

Abstract

Abstract. The erosion of rocky coasts contributes to global cycles of elements over geological times and also constitutes a major hazard that may potentially increase in the future. Yet, it remains a challenge to quantify rocky coast retreat rates over millennia; a time span that encompasses the stochasticity of the processes involved. Specifically, there are no available methods that can be used to quantify slow coastal erosion (< 1 cm yr^-1) averaged over millennia. Here, we use the ¹⁰Be concentration in colluvium, corresponding to the by-product of aerial rocky coast erosion, to quantify the local coastal retreat rate averaged over millennia. We test this approach along the Mediterranean coast of the Eastern Pyrenees (n=8) and the desert coast in Southern Peru (n=3). We observe a consistent relationship between the inferred erosion rates, the geomorphic and climatic contexts. The retreat rates are similar, 0.3–0.5 mm yr^-1 for five samples taken on the Mediterranean coast, whereas one sample located on a cape and two samples from a vegetated colluvium have a lower rate of ~0.1 mm yr^-1. The coastal retreat rate of the drier Peruvian coast is slower at 0.05 mm yr^-1. Although the integration periods of these erosion rates may encompass pre-Holocene times, during which the sea-level and thus the retreat rate were much lower, we conclude here that the associated bias on the inferred retreat rate is less than 80 %. We anticipate that this new method of quantifying slow rocky coastal erosion will fill a major gap in the coastal erosion database and improve our understanding of both coastal erosion factors and hazards.