Morten Pejrup

Barrier‐island system evolution is controlled by internal and external forcing mechanisms, and temporal changes in these mechanisms may be recorded in the sedimentary architecture. However, the precise role of individual forcing mechanisms is rarely well understood due to limited chronological control. This study investigates the relative role of forcing conditions, such as antecedent topography, sea‐level rise, sediment supply, storms and climate changes, on the evolution of a Holocene wave‐dominated barrier‐island system. This article presents temporal reconstruction of the depositional history of the barrier‐island system of Rømø in the Wadden Sea in unprecedented detail, based on ground‐penetrating radar profiles, sediment cores, high‐resolution dating and palynological investigations, and shows thatca8000 years ago the barrier island formed on a Pleistocene topographic high. During the initial phase of barrier evolution, the long‐term sea‐level rise was relatively rapid (ca9 mm year⁻¹) and the barrier was narrow and frequently overwashed. Sediment supply kept pace with sea‐level rise, and the barrier‐island system mainly aggraded through the deposition of aca7 m thick stack of overwash fans. Aggradation continued forca1700 years until sea‐level rise had decreased to −1. In the lastca6000 years, the barrier prograded 4 to 5 km through deposition of a 10 to 15 m thick beach and shoreface unit, despite a long‐term sea‐level rise of 1 to 2 mm year⁻¹. The long‐term progradation was, however, interrupted by a transgression between 4000 years and 1700 years ago. These results demonstrate that the large‐scale morphology of the Danish Wadden Sea shoreline influences the longshore sediment transport flux and the millennial‐scale dispersal of sediment along the shoreline. On decadal to centennial timescales, major storms induced intense beach and shoreface erosion followed by rapid recovery and progradation which resulted in a highly punctuated beach and shoreface record. Major storms contributed towards a positive sediment budget, and the sustained surplus of sediment was, and still is, instrumental in maintaining the aggradational–progradational state of the barrier island.

Extreme storms and storm surges may induce major changes along sandy barrier coastlines, potentially causing substantial environmental and economic damage. We show that the most destructive storm (the 1634 AD storm) documented for the northern Wadden Sea within the last thousand years both caused permanent barrier breaching and initiated accumulation of up to several metres of marine sand. An aggradational storm shoal and a prograding shoreface sand unit having thicknesses of up to 8 m and 5 m respectively were deposited as a result of the storm and during the subsequent 30 to 40 years long healing phase, on the eroded shoreface. Our results demonstrate that millennial-scale storms can induce large-scale and long-term changes on barrier coastlines and shorefaces, and that coastal changes assumed to take place over centuries or even millennia may occur in association with and be triggered by a single extreme storm event.

This study presents an Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) based chronology for the evolution of the barrier island Rømø and related back-barrier lagoon deposits in the Danish Wadden Sea. The chronology is constructed using 78 quartz OSL ages obtained using a Single Aliquot Regenerative dose (SAR) protocol; samples were retrieved from seven sediment cores, each up to 25 m long, taken from locations on the island and within the back-barrier lagoon. The reliability of the OSL results is assessed using preheat plateaus, thermal transfer tests, and dose recovery measurements, and by comparison with independent age control. The OSL ages compare favourably with three ¹⁴C age estimates, and range between 220±20 and 15 800±1200 years. Rømø appears to have developed as a progradational barrier system, and the island appeared for the first time approximately 8000 years ago. It then gradually expanded towards the west, north and south as a result of an abundant sediment supply. Luminescence dating is concluded to be well-suited for establishing precise and accurate chronologies for barrier island deposits, and the technique has provided an excellent basis for the reconstruction of barrier island evolution.