Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40645-019-0265-2(2019) 6:14

Progress in Earth andPlanetary Science

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Open Access

Large tsunamis reset growth ofmassive corals
Kazuhisa Goto1* , Chuki Hongo2, Masashi Watanabe3, Keitaro Miyazawa3 and Akifumi Hisamatsu3

Abstract
Corals at Ishigaki Island, Japan, are characterized by their high species diversity. Not only are they struck by storm
waves generated annually by typhoons, the corals, especially the massive ones, in the fringing reef were buffeted
by huge tsunami waves with a run-up height of ca. 30 m in 1771 Meiwa tsunami and its predecessors at few hundredyear intervals. We present field survey and numerical results demonstrating that such near-field large tsunamis could
have reset the growth of massive corals, a phenomenon which large typhoons have not caused. Our field survey
revealed that the massive corals in the lagoon are not attached to the bedrock but are instead located on the sandysea bottom. Therefore, those are movable of sufficiently large wave inundated in the lagoon. Our numerical results
further showed that the maximum velocity of the tsunami at the reef edge, calculable as < 21.2 m/s at the study area,
is still high in the shallow lagoon, perhaps generating sufficiently strong hydrodynamic force to devastate the massive
corals in the shallow lagoon entirely, as well as some presumed damages on tabular and branching corals on the reef
crest and reef slope. This numerical result is consistent with the observed fact that even a 9-m long Porites
boulder (about 220 t) was cast ashore by the 1771 tsunami. The sizes of the presently living massive coralsof Porites spp. are consistent with our hypothesis that they started to grow after the latest 1771 tsunami
event. At the coral reefs of high tsunami-risk countries, severe destruction of corals by large tsunami waves
should be considered for their growth history because, depending on the bathymetry, coral characteristics,
and tsunami hydrodynamic features, tsunamis can radically alter coral habitats.
Keywords: Boulder, Coral, Disaster, Hazard, Ishigaki Island, Tsunami, Tsunami effects on coral, Coral boulder,
Numerical modeling

Introduction
Physical perturbation of corals by extreme waves can generate a remarkably strong influence on marine ecosystems(Madin and Connolly 2006; Puotinen et al. 2016). Tsunami
waves are extremely powerful, affecting coral communities.
In fact, coral damage by tsunami waves, which includes
whole or partial damage of corals by destruction, rotation,
sedimentation of sands on corals, and local slides of reefslopes, has been reported in the case of the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami (IOT) (e.g., Phuket Marine BiologicalCenter (PMBC) 2005; Chavanich et al. 2008) and the 2009
South Pacific tsunami (McAdoo et al. 2011; Witt et al.
2011; Dilmen et al. 2015).

* Correspondence: goto@irides.tohoku.ac.jp
1
International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Aoba
468-1 Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-0845, Japan
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

Coral damage is generally related to the place where thetsunami hydrodynamic forces strengthen (Goto and
Imamura 2009; Kawamata et al. 2009), although the relation is unclear. For example, coral damage by the 2004IOT
at the islands in Thailand was high in straits among theislands and at the northern and southern headlands of therespective islands (PMBC 2005), where the tsunami hydrodynamic forces are stronger (Kawamata et al. 2009).
However, coral damage by the 2004IOT was generally low.
Therefore, researchers who conducted studies after
2004IOT have tended to conclude that the tsunami impact
effects on coral communities are limited (Baird et al. 2005;
Morri et al. 2015).
However, because few case studies have been reported,
one must not underestimate the tsunami effects oncorals’ ability to inhabit an area. Huge tsunami waves arelikely to have the capability of devastating coral communities depending on the nearby bathymetric features,© The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

coral characteristics, and related hydrodynamic forces.
This possibility must be explored because tsunami
waves might be able to change the coral habitability
radically: they present a high risk to reef environments. In fact, huge coral boulders are well known tobe cast ashore by tsunami waves (so-called tsunami
boulders) and storm waves (e.g., Goto et al. 2010a,
2013; Atwater et al. 2017; Ramos et al. 2017; Hongo
et al. 2018; Rixhon et al. 2018). These phenomena inturn indicate that large corals can be damaged byextreme wave events.
As one example, based on field observations andtsunami numerical modeling, we describe the possible
catastrophic destruction of massive corals by the 1771
Meiwa tsunami, which struck the east coast of Ishigaki
Island, Japan (Fig. 1a) (Goto et al. 2010a). Moreover,
we discuss the effects of catastrophic but infrequenttsunami wave strikes on coral communities.

Page 2 of 14

Study area
Ishigaki Island is encircled by a < 1.5 km wide fringing
reef (Hongo and Kayanne 2009). Our study area, Ibaruma reef, has a fringing reef 500–900 m offshore (Fig. 1b,c, Goto et al. 2010b). The coral reef is divisible into areef flat and reef slope (Fig. 1c): the former is further
classified into a shallow lagoon that is up to 5 m deep
and a reef crest (Hongo and Kayanne 2009). During low
tide, the reef crest lies exposed above the ocean surface.
The reef slope is steep, with approx. 1/10 inclination(Fig. 1c). The reef is well-developed along the Pacificwindward coast rather than leeward areas (Ministry of
the Environment and the Japanese Coral Reef Society2004). Few typhoons annually pass close to the Ishigaki
Island, and the coral reef in the study area is frequently affected by the storm waves (e.g., Hongo et al. 2012).
Forty-four coral species are found between the shoreline and 1580 m from the shoreline, characterized by aFig. 1 a A map showing bathymetry and computational domains for this study from regions 1 to 4. A bathymetry contour line is 100-m interval.
b A map showing Ishigaki Island and our survey area. A bathymetry contour line is 10-m interval. c A representative cross-sectional profile ofelevation (m) at the Ibaruma reef reproduced from grid data

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

water depth of 20 m, at Ibaruma reef (Hongo andKayanne 2010). Massive corals, tabular corals, andbranching corals represent 33%, 10%, and 6% of the total
coverage, respectively. Other growth forms of coral(e.g., encrusting and sub-massive) are also observed in
the reef. The shallow lagoon is dominated by massive
corals (e.g., Porites spp.). Tabular corals (e.g., Acropora spp.)
are mainly found from the reef crest to the upper reef slope.
Branching corals (e.g., Montipora spp. and Acropora spp.)
are widely distributed from the shallow lagoon to the reef
crest. Encrusting corals (e.g., Pachyseris spp.) occupy thelower reef slope.
The 1771 Meiwa tsunami struck Ishigaki Island although
the epicenter causing this tsunami has not been revealed.
Historical documents revealed that the run-up heights were
estimated as up to about 30 m at the southeast coast of
Ishigaki Island (Goto et al. 2010a). Displacement of Porites
boulders by the tsunami, which were originally located in
the shallow lagoon, was reported along the shoreline of theeast coast including the Ibaruma reef (Kawana and Nakata
1994; Suzuki et al. 2008; Goto et al. 2010a, 2010b, 2013;
Araoka et al. 2013). Despite their mass, the exceedingly
heavy boulders are scattered well beyond the transport limit
for storm waves estimated by Goto et al. (2010b, 2013).
Watanabe et al. (2016) further supported the reports of
their tsunami origin using numerical modeling results,
demonstrating that their size and spatial distributions are
not explainable by typhoon-generated storm waves. Moreover, according to the 14C age results, most of them were
deposited by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami although some of
the boulders might have been deposited by earlier
tsunamis (Suzuki et al. 2008; Araoka et al. 2013). Recent
studies estimated tsunami recurrence intervals of about
150–400 years based on tsunami boulders (Araoka et al.
2013) and about 600 years based on fine-grained tsunami
deposits (Ando et al. 2018; Kitamura et al. 2018a, 2018b).
The largest Porites boulder of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami
origin, locally called a Bari-ishi boulder (Fig. 2a, Bari-ishimeans a stone split into pieces in Japanese), is 129 m3(9.0 × 7.0 × 3.9 m), weighing an estimated 216 t (Goto et al.
2010b; Araoka et al. 2013).

Methods/Experimental
Since the massive corals grow annually with a nearly
constant rate (e.g., Araoka et al. 2010), their size distribution allows us to test whether these massive corals
started to grow after the 1771 Meiwa tsunami. We
therefore took non-destructive underwater measurements of the size and spatial distributions of 85 massive
corals of Porites spp. using a scale and handy global
positioning system (GPS) in the Ibaruma reef mainly inAugust 2011. We measured massive corals having a longaxis greater than approx. 2 m (Table 1).

Page 3 of 14

Fig. 2 a The largest Bari-ishi boulder that was deposited by the 1771
Meiwa tsunami at the Ibaruma reef (Goto et al. 2010b). b An imageof typical massive living coral in the lagoon

Results reported by Miyazawa et al. (2012) provide thebasis of our numerical modeling of the tsunami inundation.
A linear equation is adopted to calculate propagation of the1771 Meiwa tsunami in the wider regions. A nonlinear
equation in a rectangular coordinate system is used to calculate the tsunami propagation in the reef and thesurrounding regions (Goto et al. 1997), and the bottom friction is allowed (Kotani et al. 1998). For the calculation, anested grid system is created across four regions (Figs. 1
and 3a). Spatial grid sizes of the respective regions are 300
m, 100 m, 50 m, and 10 m for regions 1, 2, 3, and 4,
respectively (after Miyazawa et al. 2012). Manning’s friction
coefficient is based on the land use map. The calculation
time is 45 min after tsunami generation, which is a sufficient time to evaluate the tsunami effects on the reef(Miyazawa et al. 2012). It should be noted that bathymetricdata in the lagoon are not well reproduced because taking
such measurements is difficult inside the lagoon and future
update of the bathymetric data in the lagoon is required.
Some source models are proposed for the 1771 Meiwa
tsunami. Imamura et al. (2008) and Miyazawa et al.
(2012) proposed an intraplate fault plus landslide model.

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

Page 4 of 14

Table 1 Locations and three dimensions of measured living massive corals
No.

Latitude (°N)

Longitude (°E)

Long axis (cm)Short axis (cm)Height (cm)124.51656

124.29756

340

330

130

2

24.51655

124.29747

240

140

115

3

24.51655

124.29743

380

270

165

4

24.51599

124.29714

315

265

135

5

24.51557

124.29736

345

325

140

6

24.51574

124.2974

230

220

120

7

24.51589

124.29751

195

150

130

8

24.51493

124.29794

330

330

250

9

24.51469

124.29806

410

390

200

10

24.51466

124.29796

370

310

170

11

24.51466

124.29802

340

265

197

12

24.51458

124.29829

455

395

280

13

24.5146

124.29834

330

230

245

14

24.51459

124.29828

250

200

90

15

24.51457

124.29825

210

190

175

16

24.51483

124.29823

340

220

80

17

24.51464

124.29819

260

220

75

18

24.5145

124.29846

390

350

285

19

24.51479

124.29908

315

290

210

20

24.51483

124.29903

440

430

242

21

24.51501

124.299

300

300

196

22

24.51501

124.299

370

340

187

23

24.51501

124.299

250

245

185

24

24.51517

124.29877

235

200

129

25

24.51518

124.29884

300

285

232

26

24.51463

124.29982

430

365

228

27

24.51465

124.29977

340

320

278

28

24.51459

124.29979

490

410

265

29

24.51462

124.29961

455

425

250

30

24.51463

124.29958

550

410

248

31

24.51464

124.29947

480

445

260

32

24.5146

124.29935

440

385

250

33

24.51452

124.29928

490

410

312

34

24.51471

124.29922

430

360

198

35

24.51394

124.29768

435

410

310

36

24.5131124.29748

310

250

175

37

24.5131124.29748

350

305

150

38

24.51322

124.29745

305

300

185

39

24.51318

124.29765

415

300

172

40

24.51315

124.29773

290

265

213

41

24.51012

124.29201

650

615

190

42

24.51287

124.29357

340

240

130

43

24.51266

124.29351

455

330

172

44

24.51253

124.29349

225

180

155

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

Page 5 of 14

Table 1 Locations and three dimensions of measured living massive corals (Continued)
No.

Latitude (°N)

Longitude (°E)

Long axis (cm)Short axis (cm)Height (cm)45

24.51262

124.29381

210

145

120

46

24.51247

124.294

340

270

192

47

24.51243124.29408

350

280

190

48

24.51231

124.29415

390

380

207

49

24.51228124.29416

280

240

185

50

24.51223

124.29438

270

190

142

51

24.51212124.29429

445

400

102

52

24.5122124.29443

315

240

145

53

24.51245

124.29459

380

375

135

54

24.51261

124.29461

365

345

160

55

24.51252

124.29506

425

415

118

56

24.51238

124.2949

360

270

190

57

24.51227124.29513

490

460

210

58

24.51225

124.29521

285

150

180

59

24.51176

124.29476

360

340

172

60

24.51189

124.29476

350

200

178

61

24.51187

124.29477

265

190

145

62

24.51244

124.29581

465

420

224

63

24.51242

124.29587

450

370

160

64

24.51242

124.29587

350

310

125

65

24.51242

124.29595

330

295

143

66

24.51227124.29598

300

260

132

67

24.5122124.29593

345

300

115

68

24.51062

124.29468

525

400

195

69

24.51067

124.29466

355

335

190

70

24.51097

124.29337

270

200

150

71

24.51109124.29347

235

220

195

72

24.51106124.29348

425

375

190

73

24.51091

124.29326

235

190

135

74

24.51088

124.29315

320

265

225

75

24.51085

124.29319

180

170

135

76

24.51078

124.29317

400

380

173

77

24.51053

124.29333

350

310

170

78

24.51078

124.29328

210

165

125

79

24.51078

124.29328

250

175

135

80

24.51078

124.29328

200

190

133

81

24.51083

124.29299

420

385

165

82

24.51088

124.29292

340

280

160

83

24.51087

124.29251

275

225

160

84

24.511124.29203

330

265

175

85

24.51107124.29218

320

210

120

(2019) 6:14

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary ScienceFig. 3 a Computational domains for this study from region 1 toregion 3. The initial water level of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami is also
shown after Miyazawa et al. (2012) and Hisamatsu et al. (2014). b
Maximum water level at 45 min after the tsunami in region 2
calculated in this study

Nakamura (2009) suggested a tsunami earthquake modelthat is set along the Ryukyu Trench. Arai et al. (2016)
and Ando et al. (2018) supported this model. Hsu et al.
(2013) proposed a mega-splay fault as the tsunami
source. Okamura et al. (2018) proposed tsunami was
generated by a large collapse of the accretionary prism
along the oblique subduction zone. All these models are
tuned parameters to fit the historical description of tsunami run-up heights (e.g., Goto et al. 2012). Consequently,
no significant difference is found during the propagation
and run-up processes. For that reason, the difference ofPage 6 of 14

source models is not crucially important for our research.
Therefore, this study applied the source model proposedby Hisamatsu et al. (2014) (Table 2), which is the updated
version of the model described by Miyazawa et al. (2012),
for the main discussion. Results obtained using the modelsof Imamura et al. (2008) and Nakamura (2009) are attachedin the supplement file. As described above, the results arefundamentally the same in terms of local inundation andrun-up at Ibaruma reef (Additional file 1: Figures S1–S6).
Therefore, we do not advance our discussion using
these models.
To evaluate the damage to corals from the tsunami, it
is important to estimate the hydrodynamic force, whichis expressed as the sum of the drag, inertia, and lift
forces, acting on the corals (Massel and Done 1993;
Madin and Connolly 2006; Imamura et al. 2008). We
assumed living massive corals as ellipsoidal boulders andadopted numerical models for boulder transport bytsunami waves as proposed by Imamura et al. (2008). The
model validity was well evaluated by subsequent studies(e.g., Goto et al. 2010c). For the calculation of themassive coral movement by the tsunami, we assumed
average (2.5 × 1.9 × 1.2 m) and maximum (9.0 × 7.0 ×
3.9 m) sizes of measured tsunami boulders (after
Watanabe et al. 2016) to investigate the difference oftsunami impact against the coral size. The wet density of the boulders is assumed as 1.68 g/cm3 (Gotoet al. 2010b; Watanabe et al. 2016). The coefficientsof static friction, dynamic friction, drag, and mass
are respectively 0.68, 0.65, 1.05, and 1.67.

Results
Field observation

Living colonies of meter-long Porites spp. are observedin the shallow lagoon (Figs. 2b and 4). Some of them
have a microatoll shape. Tabular and branching corals
are distributed mainly on the reef crest and the reefslope, although they are observed in rare cases in theshallow lagoon (Hongo and Kayanne 2009).
Whereas many massive corals exist in the Ibaruma
reef, the distribution of meter-size living corals occurs
only to a limited degree in the shallow lagoon (Fig. 4).

Table 2 A fault model used for this study
Tsunami source

Latitude (deg)Longitude (deg)Depth (km)Length (km)Width (km)Dislocation (m)Strike (deg)Dip (deg)

Rake (deg)Fault 124.2018

125.5184

5

41

35

14

245

70

90

Fault 224.0526

125.1497

5

40

35

14

246

70

90

Fault 323.9100

124.8000

5

35

35

13

259

70

90

Fault 423.8421124.4576

5

36

35

14

261

70

90

Landslide24.0036124.2640

0.1

12

8

90

76

70

90

The model was proposed by Miyazawa et al. (2012) and modified by Hisamatsu et al. (2014). The model is composed of four sub-faults with another fault that
imitate the submarine landslide. Latitude and longitude of the fault model denote upper left corner of the rectangular fault

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

The lagoon became deep from the beach toward thelandward edge of the reef crest. Therefore, massive
corals also tend to be large toward the deeper zone. The
sea floor in the lagoon is covered by sand and coral rubble, with no exposure of the hard ground. Therefore, themassive corals in the lagoon are not attached to the bedrock but are instead located on the sandy sea bottom.
This is an extremely important finding when considering
the initial condition of corals for the tsunami numericalsimulation.
The lengths of long and short axes of living massive
corals show a positive correlation (Fig. 5), although theirheights are weakly correlated with the long axis length:
the heights are also constrained by the water depth
because they cannot grow higher than the low tide level.
The largest living massive coral observed in the Ibaruma
reef is 6.5 × 6.2 × 1.9 m (no. 41 in Table 1). No coral isobserved larger than this one in the studied region.
Goto et al. (2010b) studied the tsunami boulders
deposited inside the lagoon and along the coast at
the Ibaruma reef. According to their results, some ofPage 7 of 14

these boulders are also composed of massive Porites
corals with the maximum of the Bari-ishi boulder(Fig. 2a, 9.0 × 7.0 × 3.9 m). Similar to the living corals,some tsunami boulders show microatoll shape (Gotoet al. 2010b). Not only are there coral boulders, butthere are also some reef boulders. Different from the
distribution of living corals, coral tsunami boulders
tend to be observed in the landward half of thelagoon (shallower zone) and are mostly depositedalong the shoreline (Fig. 4). Some large boulders arestill deposited in the lagoon, but they had died. Partof them emerges during the low tide, indicating thatthey had certainly been moved landward from their
original location.
Numerical modeling

Figure 3 shows the initial water level and the modeled
maximum water level at 45 min after tsunami generation. The water level, which is high at the south to east
coast of Ishigaki Island (ca. 28.2 m), is consistent withestimated run-up heights from historical documents (ca.

Fig. 4 A map showing the distribution and size of living massive corals of Porites sp. (see Table 1 for the list) and coral tsunami boulders at
Ibaruma reef (after Goto et al. 2010b). Aerial photographs were provided by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism,
Government of Japan (1977 photograph). The weight of living corals was estimated based on the assumption of ellipsoidal shape with a wet
density of 1.68 g/cm3

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

Page 8 of 14

Fig. 5 A diagram showing the relation between long and short axes lengths and height of the living massive corals of Porites spp. See Table 1
for the list of original data

30 m, Goto et al. 2010a, 2012). The current velocity ishigher at the reef slope rather than in the shallow lagoon(Fig. 6) because the very shallow fringing reef acts as abarrier and because the breaking point of the tsunami
wave is far offshore of the reef edge. It is noteworthy
that the maximum current velocity is reached at about
21.2 m/s around the reef near the Ibaruma reef (Fig. 6).
Such an extremely high current velocity is marked at thereef edge and channel (Fig. 6b). The maximum velocity
is still high, even in the shallow lagoon of the east coast(Fig. 6b, c). In contrast to the east coast, the velocities
are generally lower at the west coast than at the east
coast (Fig. 6b).
Figure 7 shows the calculated initial and final stop
positions of average and maximum sizes of corals
moved by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami. The movement of
average-size corals is well reproduced as they are castashore. However, the maximum boulder is moved a few
hundred meters, although it is not shown to reach its
present position. This underestimation by numericalresults might be explained by two reasons. First, thisregion lacks a detailed description of tsunami run-up
height: a study by Goto et al. (2012) estimated a wide
range in run-up heights (9.4–29.3 m). Therefore, theconstraint of the tsunami source model might have been
insufficient locally, and tsunami hydrodynamic force could
have been underestimated. Secondly, bathymetric data in
the lagoon are not well reproduced because taking suchmeasurements is difficult inside the lagoon. Therefore, afuture update of the source model as well as bathymetry is
required. Nevertheless, we infer that our results approximately reproduced the phenomena by which even a 9 mlong huge massive coral could have been moved a few

hundred meters. It could have emerged (dead) by the1771 Meiwa tsunami.

Discussion
Tsunami impact on the massive corals

The lagoon in Ibaruma reef usually shows a calm condition,even during typhoon events, because the very shallow andwide reef crest protects the physical perturbation by thewaves (Goto et al. 2010b; Hongo et al. 2012). In fact,
massive corals could have grown to be very large (long axisof ca. 9 m) with no physical disturbance during thetyphoon-generated storm waves even if the massive corals
had not been fixed on the ground. Hongo et al. (2012)suggested that a large storm wave can break far offshore of
the reef edge and attenuate well before it reaches theshallow lagoon because the reef crest at the east coastof Ishigaki Island is well developed. This developed reef
crest would be the main reason why such vulnerable
massive corals in the shallow lagoon can survive theyearly typhoon impact over such a long period.
The 1771 Meiwa tsunami is the notable exception
during at least the last 240 years, showing physical disturbance inside the lagoon of Ibaruma reef because of itsvery high current velocities acting on the massive corals(< 21.2 m/s). In fact, the largest Bari-ishi boulder could
have been displaced easily by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami(Araoka et al. 2013). Moreover, this velocity is a few times
higher than the observed current velocity of the recent
tsunami events (Goto et al. 2007; Matsutomi and Okamoto
2010) including the 2004IOT-devastated areas such as thewest coast of Sumatra Island, Indonesia (Prasetya et al.
2011), where minor to moderate coral damage was reported (Baird et al. 2005), the 2009 South Pacific tsunami

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

(a)Page 9 of 14

(b)

(c)

Fig. 6 a Numerical result for the absolute value of the maximum tsunami current velocity (m/s) around the Ishigaki Island and b around theIbaruma reef. c Cross-sectional profiles of elevation (m), maximum water level (m), and maximum current velocity (m/s) at the Ibaruma reef. The
transect location is depicted in Fig. 7a(e.g., Dilmen et al. 2015) and the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami(Sugawara and Goto 2012).
Then, why is the tsunami velocity in the reef so high incase of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami? Recently, Kitamura et al.
(2018b) examined the molluscan assemblages preserved
within four ancient tsunami deposits, including 1771
Meiwa tsunami, in a trench located 4 km southwest of thestudy area. The authors concluded that the present-day
shallow lagoon protected by reef crests has been present
at least during the last 1200 years. Thus, high tsunami velocity is not explained by the absence of reef crests. First,
this tsunami is exceedingly large locally, even if compared
to recent large tsunami events. The maximum run-up
height is estimated as approx. 30 m (Goto et al. 2010a) andis lower than the approx. ~ 40–50 m run-ups of the
2004IOT (Lavigne et al. 2009) and the 2011 Tohoku-oki
tsunami (Mori et al. 2012). However, the maximum run-up
height of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami was recorded at theflat coastal area with the protection of the coast by
the approx. 1.5 km-wide reef (Goto et al. 2010a),whereas high run-up heights of the 2004IOT and the2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami were recorded in narrowvalleys and bays where tsunamis could have been focused and could have thereby reached so high. Therefore, the impact of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami on thereef could have been much stronger than the otherrecent large tsunamis. Secondly, the fault width,
which affects the tsunami wave length, of the recent

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

Page 10 of 14

(a)

(b)

Fig. 7 Numerical results of coral transport by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami in region 4. a Average size boulder. b The largest boulder. Yellow, white,
and red diamonds respectively denote original location, final stop position, and present location of Bari-ishi boulder. The line in a is the transectline in Fig. 6ctsunami such as the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami is estimated as about 100 km (e.g., Imamura et al. 2012),
whereas that of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami is estimatedas less than 35 km (Table 2, Additional file 2,
Imamura et al. 2008; Nakamura 2009; Miyazawa et al.
2012). If the wave length or period of the tsunami becomes short, the vertical variation of water level becomes faster; thus, horizontal current velocity also
becomes faster. Indeed, some researchers stated that atsunami with a shorter wave length usually generates
a faster current for a given wave height (e.g., Gusman
et al. 2012). Moreover, to explain a 30 m high run-up
at the very flat and reef-protected coast, the initialmaximum water levels must also be very high (Fig. 3a,Miyazawa et al. 2012). Therefore, the 1771 Meiwa tsunami
can be characterized as having a short wave period withexceedingly large wave height, which indicates that thewave has a very steep shape. Such a wave can generate extremely high velocity at the reef after wave breaking.
No massive coral, living or dead, is larger than the
Bari-ishi boulder in the shallow lagoon of the east coastof Ishigaki Island. Displacement of the largest Bari-ishiboulder by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami suggests that themassive corals of Porites spp. smaller than the boulderthat was in the shallow lagoon before the 1771 Meiwa
tsunami should have been displaced easily on land or
resettled somewhere in the shallow lagoon by the tsunami. This supposition is well confirmed: small boulders
are easily cast ashore by the tsunami (Fig. 7a). If this is
the case, then massive corals of Porites spp. in the shallow lagoon of the Ishigaki Island were once fully devastated by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami: they subsequently
restarted the growth after the tsunami. It is noteworthy
that massive corals are not attached to the ground but
merely located on the sandy ground. This would be very
important evidence suggesting that many large massive
corals were deposited by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami
because they were movable.
This hypothesis is testable based on the size of the presently living massive corals. Massive corals of Porites spp.
showed a high average growth rate of 7–20 mm/year at
Ishigaki Island (Mitsuguchi et al. 1996; Tsunoda et al.
2006; Suzuki et al. 2008; Shimamura et al. 2008; Araoka
et al. 2010). Among them, the study site by Araoka
et al. (2010), where the average growth rate of Porites
sp. is about 13.5 mm/year (about 10–20 mm/year, D.
Araoka, personal communication), is the closest location to our site. In addition, Araoka et al. (2013)

Goto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

estimated the creation of the Bari-ishi boulder as AD
1227–1317 (± 1σ) based on 14C age measurements.
The coral is dead by the time of the 1771 Meiwa tsunami.
Therefore, this boulder grew up to 9 m in diameter during
454–544 years. Consequently, the growth rate can be estimated as about 8.3–9.9 mm/year (4.5 m in radius divided
by 454–544), which is well consistent with the growth rateestimated from Araoka et al. (2010).
Today, some 240 years have passed since the tsunami
for which we conducted the field survey in 2011.
Therefore, the size of the massive corals can be expected to have reached up to about 4.0–6.5 m in diameter(8.3–13.5 (mm/year) × 240 (years) × 2 (to be diameter)).
Considering the variation of the growth rate dependingon the local factors, we infer that this estimated possible maximum size is well consistent with the observed maximum size of the living massive corals inthe shallow lagoon of the Ibaruma reef, which is lessthan 6.5 m (Table 1, Fig. 5).
Some Porites boulders that had been transported by
the tsunami have also been redeposited in the shallow
lagoon (Fig. 4, Suzuki et al. 2008; Goto et al. 2010a).
They could have survived the tsunami if the conditions of the shallow lagoon soon after the tsunami
were suitable for coral growth. However, the absenceof living corals larger than 6.5 m suggests that no suchcorals exist. Consequently, even massive corals thatwere transported by the tsunami but which were still
located in the shallow lagoon might have died soonafter the tsunami. This fact is probably explained by
the indirect effect of the tsunami on the corals. For
example, sand or coral fragments might have covered
the massive corals. Impact of the sand and coral fragments flowing in the tsunami current on the living
corals would have been another damaging influenceon the living corals. Terrestrial reddish soil, whichusually affects the coral habitability (Fortes 2001),
might have been deposited by the backwash in greatamounts in the shallow lagoon.
Tsunami impact on tabular and branching corals

Damage to tabular and branching corals by the tsunami
is far more difficult to evaluate than that to the massive
corals because of the corals’ complex structures andtheir habitability. According to numerical modeling conducted by Kawamata et al. (2009), the coral damage is
generally proportional to the tsunami current velocity:
approx. 50% coral damage was generated at Similan
Island in Thailand by the 2004IOT when the maximum
current velocity of the tsunami exceeded about 5 m/s.
Hongo et al. (2012) also suggested that tabular corals
might be damaged by typhoon-generated storm waves
with approx. 6 m/s current velocity. It is particularly important to note that our estimated maximum current

Page 11 of 14

velocity generated by the 1771 Meiwa tsunami at the
Ibaruma reef is a few times higher than these estimates.
Therefore, it is conservative to estimate that many
tabular or branching corals at the east coast of Ishigaki
Island were physically damaged by the 1771 Meiwa
tsunami.
Hongo et al. (2012) revealed that larger tabular corals
are more vulnerable to wave impact because they can beaffected by larger wave force attributable to their shapes.
This result in turn suggests that smaller tabular corals
might have some chance of surviving the tsunami
impact. In fact, Reyes et al. (2015) reported limited
damage to corals after super typhoon Haiyan on 2013.
Tabular and branching corals are far smaller than themassive corals. Moreover, these corals are selectively
distributed mainly on the reef crest and the reef slope,
where the storm wave impact is strong (Hongo et al.
2012). Therefore, they might have been damaged repeatedly and restarted growth in a short return period by large
typhoons every few to a few tens of years (Hongo
et al. 2012). Therefore, the tsunami impact might
have been one such destructive events for them andmight not have been remarkable, as in the case of
massive corals.

Conclusions
It is usually considered that local conditions (e.g., salinity,
water temperature, frequency, and magnitude of storm
wave impact) should have affected the growth history ofcorals and coral reefs (Montaggioni and Braithwaite2009). However, catastrophic destruction of coral by thetsunami would also have been one important factor affecting the coral growth at Ishigaki Island because historicaland geological evidence indicates that small and large
tsunamis in the past frequently struck eastward of theisland at 150 to 400 or 600-year intervals (e.g., Araoka
et al. 2013; Ando et al. 2018). If this is the case, then coral
habitability at the east coast of Ishigaki Island might havebeen repeatedly reset and restarted to grow every few
hundred years. This idea can be tested further in future
work to compare the differences of the coral characteristics, size, and diversity at the west coast of Ishigaki Island,
where damage from the paleotsunamis is expected to havebeen minor (Goto et al. 2010a).
Our results further suggest that similar catastrophic
damage of corals by tsunamis can be expected at locations
where remarkably large near-field tsunamis might havebeen generated, such as tropical islands in the Pacific
Ocean (e.g., Frohlich et al. 2009). Not only the tsunami
energy and local bathymetry but also coral characteristics(e.g., whether massive corals attached to the ground ornot) would be very important factors of coral damage. At
the coral reefs of high tsunami-risk countries, the catastrophic destruction of corals by large tsunamis should beGoto et al. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science(2019) 6:14

considered when assessing their growth history because
tsunamis can radically change the coral habitability, reef
geomorphology, and the environment. Living massive
corals in the Ibaruma reef are not attached to the ground.
Therefore, they are very vulnerable to large tsunami
waves. The risk can be very high because 248 years havepassed since the 1771 Meiwa tsunami. It is almost“on time” if we consider the tsunami recurrence of
150–400 years (Araoka et al. 2013). If the size of anincident tsunami is equivalent to the 1771 Meiwa tsunami, then presently living massive corals would beentirely devastated because they are still small (< 6.5 m).
Therefore, environmental risk assessment of coral reefs
should be performed, beyond considerations of damage tohumanity and infrastructure.
Importantly, corals on the east coast of Ishigaki Island are
now characterized by high species diversity (Veron 1992).
Although it is uncertain how long environmental stresscontinued for corals after the tsunami, we infer that its effects are not permanent. Potentially, large tsunamis can act
as important agents to alter coral diversity in the lagoon because all corals have a chance to occupy the niche of thebarren reef as they contemporaneously start to grow after alarge tsunami.

Additional files
Additional file 1: Figure S1. (a) Initial water level of the tsunami source
model proposed by Imamura et al. (2008). (b) Maximum water level at 45
min after the tsunami in region 2. Figure S2. (a) Initial water level of thetsunami source model proposed by Nakamura (2009). (b) Maximum waterlevel at 60 min after the tsunami in region 2. Figure S3. (a) Numerical result
for the absolute value of the maximum tsunami current velocity (m/s) aroundthe Ishigaki Island and (b) around the Ibaruma reef using the model proposedby Imamura et al. (2008). Figure S4. Numerical results of coral transport by
the 1771 Meiwa tsunami using the model proposed by Imamura et al. (2008):(a) average size boulder and (b) the largest boulder. Yellow, green, and red
diamonds respectively denote the original location, final stop position, andpresent location of Bari-ishi boulder. Figure S5. (a) Numerical result for theabsolute value of the maximum tsunami current velocity (m/s) around the
Ishigaki Island and (b) around the Ibaruma reef using the model proposed byNakamura (2009). Figure S6. Numerical results of coral transport by the 1771
Meiwa tsunami using the model proposed by Nakamura (2009): (a) average
size boulder and (b) the largest boulder. Yellow, green, and red diamonds
respectively denote the original location, final stop position, and present
location of Bari-ishi boulder. (PDF 1163 kb)
Additional file 2: Table S1. Fault models proposed by Nakamura (2009)
and Imamura et al. (2001). (XLSX 9 kb)

Abbreviations
2004IOT: 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami; PMBC: Phuket Marine Biological Center
Acknowledgements
We appreciate H. Kawamata and Y. Suda for their support during field survey.
Bathymetric data for numerical modeling were provided by Okinawa Prefecture.
The editor J. Matsumoto and anonymous reviewers provide valuable comments
on improving our manuscript.
Funding
This work is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22241042.

Page 12 of 14

Availability of data and materials
Please contact author for data requests.
Authors’ contributions
KG proposed the topic and conceived and designed the study. KG and CH
conducted the field survey. MW, KM, and AH conducted the numericalmodeling of tsunami and boulder transport. CH collaborated with thecorresponding author in the construction of the manuscript. All authors
read and approved the final manuscript.
Authors’ information
KM and AH are, respectively, now at Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. and Penta Ocean
Construction Co., Ltd.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s NoteSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in publishedmaps and institutional affiliations.
Author details
1
International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Aoba
468-1 Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-0845, Japan. 2Department of Chemistry,
Biology, and Marine Science, University of the Ryukyus, 1 Senbaru, Nishihara,
Okinawa 903-0213, Japan. 3School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aoba
468-1 Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-0845, Japan.
Received: 3 August 2018 Accepted: 21 January 2019

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