accommodate terrestrial flooding. In consequence, although the natural vegetation may be severely damaged, tropical cyclones may have less geomorphic impact. Low coral islands, such as those that occur on atolls, have the most vulnerable physical environments of all. They are little more than unconsolidated heaps of coralline sands and gravels resting on reef foundations, and are especially prone to overtopping by storm surge and cyclone-driven waves. Associated sediment movement can produce rema- able changes sometimes the complete obliteration of an island altogether, or on other occasions...

The primary goal here is to present a treatise on the significance and value of coarse clastic carbonate sediments (i.e. large coral boulders) on tropical coastlines for understanding both modern and pre-historical (Holocene) high-magnitude marine inundation events. There has been a rapid groundswell of interest in large carbonate blocks on tropical coasts over the last decade, yet it is not widely appreciated that such features were observed and recorded back in the early explorations of Matthew Flinders on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1800s. This book will illuminate how various...