Auxiliary Material Text S1
Coring, core processing and physical properties
In July 2004, ten cores were retrieved from Hersek Lagoon using a hand-pushed
Livingstone piston corer (50 mm diameter) operated from an anchored raft. Sediment cores
were taken as successive 1 m long core sections in two parallel boreholes to ensure a
complete recovery. The cores were split into halves, described (length, color, oxidation state,
texture, sedimentary structures and presence of macrofossils) and photographed at Brunel
University, UK. Prior to sampling, the core sections were scanned for physical properties on a
Geotek multi-sensor core logger at GFZ, Potsdam, Germany. The different physical properties
(volume-specific magnetic susceptibility, gamma-density and p-wave velocity) were
measured on split cores at 5 mm resolution.
Composite cores were subsequently constructed by correlating the 1 m long sections
using magnetic susceptibility results and distinctive layers described macroscopically. No
stretching was applied. The best adjustment was selected by varying the absolute depth of
each section according to the distinct layers. The composite results were then used for
drawing lithological columns (Figure 3) and sampling.
The two longest cores (HK04LV5 and HK04LV6), which were respectively retrieved
from the northern and southern side of the fault trace (Figure 2), were selected and sampled
for multi-proxy analyses (Table S1). Both halves were used to ensure sufficient material for
analysis. From the first half, 2 cm-thick slices were taken at 10 cm intervals for mineralogy,
mineral magnetism and geochemistry. The second half was continuously sampled in 5 cm
slices and these samples were wet sieved at 63, 250 and 500 µm for analysis of foraminifera,
ostracods and other macrofossils. The > 500 μm fraction was examined under a binocular lens
to determine and quantify the nature of the coarse particles (intact and broken mollusk shells,
mollusk shell fragments and organic matter fragments). This fraction was also used to handpick macroscopical remains of terrestrial organic matter for radiocarbon analysis.
Measurement
HK04LV5
HK04LV6
Bulk mineralogy
10 cm
10 cm
Clay mineralogy
10 cm
10 cm
Mineral magnetism
10 cm
—
Macro remains
5 cm
5 cm
—
5 cm
Ostracods
5 cm
—
TOC a
10 cm
10 cm
10 cm
—
CaCO3
10 cm
10 cm
Inorg. geochemistry c
10 cm
—
Foraminifera
TOC, TN
b
Table S1 – List of measurements made on cores HK04LV5 and HK04LV6, with indication of
the respective sampling resolution. (a) Walkey-Black method [Gaudette et al., 1974]; (b)
elemental analyzer; (c) ICP-OES.
Mineralogy
Bulk and clay mineralogy was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) on a Bruker D8Advance diffractometer with CuKα radiation at the University of Liège, Belgium. Bulk
samples were powdered to 150 µm using an agate mortar. An aliquot was separated and
mounted as unoriented powder by the back-side method [Brindley and Brown, 1980]. The
powder was submitted to XRD between 2° and 45° 2θ. The data were analyzed in a semiquantitative way following Cook et al. [1975]. The intensity of the principal peak of each
mineral was measured and corrected by a multiplication factor.
Clay mineralogy was established on the decarbonated < 2 µm fraction. For each sample,
3 cc of dry bulk sediment was dispersed in deionized water and sieved at 63 µm to remove
coarse particles. The samples were then decarbonated using 0.1 N HCl until total dissolution
of the carbonates. Samples were subsequently rinsed several times with deionized water and
centrifuged at 2500 rpm during 10 min until total deflocculation. The < 2 µm fraction was
separated by decantation after 50 min of sedimentation according to Stokes’s settling law.
Oriented mounts were made by the "glass-slide method" [Moore and Reynolds, 1989] and
subsequently scanned on the diffractometer. Routine XRD clay analyses included the
successive measurement of an X-ray pattern in air-dried or natural condition between 2° and
30° 2Ө, after solvation with ethylene glycol for 24 h between 2° and 23° 2Ө, and after ovenheating at 500° C during 4h between 2° and 15° 2Ө. Semi-quantitative estimations of the
main clay species (17 Å smectite, 10 Å illite, and 7 Å kaolinite and chlorite) in the clay
fraction are based on the weighted glycolated peak area method of Biscaye [1965]. The peak
area of kaolinite (001) and chlorite (002) at 7 Å was measured collectively and then
proportioned according to their peak heights at 3.57 and 3.54 Å, respectively. Relative
percentages of the four main clay minerals were obtained using the weighting factors of
Biscaye [1965] (illite: x4, smectite: x1, kaolinite and chlorite: x2).
Geochemistry
Organic carbon (Corg) and total carbonate contents were measured at Istanbul Technical
University (ITU), Turkey, on 0.5 g of dried and powered sediment. Corg was analyzed using
the Walkey-Black method, which involves wet combustion of the sample with potassium
dichromate and back-titration of excess potassium dichromate with Fe(II) ammonium
sulphate [Gaudette et al., 1974]. The precision of the analysis is better than 10 % at 95 %
confidence interval. Glucose standards (0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06 g) were used for
calibration.
Total carbonate contents were determined by a gasometric-volumetric method after a
4M HCl treatment [Loring and Rantala, 1992]. The calibration curve was based on the
analysis of 0.02, 0.04, 0.08, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3g pure CaCO3.
In addition, samples from core HK04LV5 were analyzed for Carbon/Nitrogen (C/N)
ratios at the University of Vermont, USA. Measurements were made on a Carlo Erba NC
2500 Elemental Analyzer on sediment sealed into tin capsules. Before analysis, samples were
treated with dilute HCl to remove carbonates, and the weight of sediment used for analysis
was optimized using loss-on-ignition data (5–200 mg). Calibration included a NIST-1547
standard (Peach Leaves: 46.34 % C, 2.94 % N) run every 15 samples. The precision of the
analyses was approximately 1 % of the measured value for C, and 0.5 % for N. C/N ratios
were calculated from the % C and % N data.
Trace element geochemistry was analyzed on 35 samples from core HK04LV5. Twentythree elements (Ag, Al, Be, Bi, Ca, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Sr, Ti, V,
Y, S, Zn) were measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICPOES) at Activation Laboratories, Ancaster, Canada, on 0.25 g of dried and homogenized
sediment from the < 2000 μm size fraction. Samples were prepared using near-total acid
digestion with HF, HClO4, HNO3 and HCl. Here, we mainly use the Sulfur data as a proxy for
marine transgressions in coastal environments [Berner and Raiswell, 1984; Ku et al., 2001].
Mineral magnetism
Samples for mineral magnetism were freeze-dried, hard-packed into 3.2 cm3 plastic
cubes and weighed before analysis at the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado, USA.
Anhysteretic remnant magnetization (ARM) and isothermal remnant magnetization (IRM)
were measured on a high-speed spinner magnetometer [Thompson and Oldfield, 1986;
Dunlop and Özdemir, 1997]. Peak induction for ARM was 100 mT, with a DC bias of 0.1
mT. Initial IRM was imparted with an impulse magnetometer in an 1.2 T field. Opposite
(back) IRM was imparted in a 0.3 T field [Thompson and Oldfield, 1986]. Here, we use the Sparameter (S=IRM−0.3/ IRM1.2), which distinguishes low (magnetite) and high (hematite or
goethite) coercivity magnetic minerals [King and Channel, 1991], such that S=1 when no
hematite or goethite is present and S<1 as their content increases.
Paleoecology
Foraminifera were determined on the 63–500 μm fraction of core HK04LV6 at ITU.
The 63–500 μm fraction was separated by wet-sieving and it was subsequently dried at 70 C
for 24 h. Fifty mg of sample was used for foraminifera analysis under binocular microscope.
Species were identified and counted according to Loeblich and Tappan [1988], Cimerman
and Langer [1991], Sgarrella and Moncharmont Zei [1993], and Sakınç [2008].
Ostracod absolute shell abundances were determined at the Freie Universitaet Berlin, on
the > 250 µm fraction of core HK04LV5. Up to 300 ostracod shells were counted for each
sample. For samples containing more than 300 shells, randomly selected subsamples of the
remaining material were used for further counting and abundances were then calculated by
extrapolation. Species were identified according to Athersuch et al. [1989].
Chronology
Remains of terrestrial organic matter were hand-picked in the > 500 μm fraction of cores
HK04LV5, 6 and 7 for radiocarbon dating. These samples, which were taken in all the
organic-rich layers (Fig 3), are believed to represent in situ terrestrial vegetation that was
buried by the coseismic subsidence deposits. Nine samples were measured by Accelerator
Mass Spectrometry at the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory [Czernik and Goslar, 2001] (Table
2). Before analysis, samples were cleaned in mQ water and oven-dried at 40º C. Ages were
calibrated with OxCal 4.0 using the IntCal04 atmospheric curve of Reimer et al. [2004].
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