SEDIMENTARY EVIDENCE OF EUROPEAN LAND CLEARANCE AND OYSTER BED DESTRUCTION IN NEW YORK HARBOR

New York City and New York Harbor have undergone extensive anthropogenic changes since European colonization of the area in the late 1600’s. In particular, forests were clear-cut to create farmland and oysters were harvested from the harbor to support a growing population and extensive shellfish trade. We present grain size analyses for cores collected from three coastal, back-barrier ponds from the south shore of Staten Island following Hurricane Sandy. Results not only show a record of storm inundation, but also reveal a change in background sedimentation. There is an increase in background levels of magnetic susceptibility (MS), a change from bluish-gray to red sediments, and an increase in the number of storm overwash deposits. The clear-cutting of Staten Island allows the surficial sediments, which are mainly composed of red, hematite rich glacial material, to be more easily eroded and deposited in the ponds. Deposition associated with Hurricane Sandy is evident at all three sites as a coarse grained deposit with associated peaks in magnetic susceptibility. Additional peaks in magnetic susceptibility date to earlier hurricane events and prove to be a reliable marker of flooding within the harbor over the last few centuries. Peaks in MS decrease suddenly between 1600 and 1800 CE at all three sites. We hypothesize that this increase in overwash beginning between 1600-1800 CE is likely due to an increase in wave activity due to the decimation of oyster beds off-shore over this same time period.