Boulder Dislodgement During Coastal Storms and Tsunamis: Insights From a New Ensemble Model

Boulders are excellent candidate deposits to study coastal inundation events by storms and tsunamis due to their significant preservation potential. However, it is difficult to infer how and what forcing dislodged the boulder. We present a new model that enables ensemble and Monte-Carlo-type simulations to study the sensitivity of boulder, the fluid flow, and environmental parameters. Our examples show that boulder transport is complex and nonlinear, and to acknowledge the uncertainties of the boulder's preexisting transport conditions, a range of velocities and environmental parameters should be used to quantify the flow that caused boulder dislodgement.

Automated summary

This article presents a new model for studying the sensitivity of boulders, fluid flow, and environmental parameters through simulations, providing a better understanding of the process of boulder dislodgement.