Fiji : Viti Levu : reconnaissance photographic evidence for earthquake and tsunami events on tropical reef margins

Photographs have been taken from a helicopter at locations on the barrier and fringing reefs extending from east to west on the southern coast of Viti Levu, Fiji. The sites are systematically described with reference to UTM coordinates, local names and observations of typical subaerial to submarine features of reef, estuarine and reef-rentrant structure. Most of the photographs document expected reef and other coastal scenes but exceptional features such as very large boulders and cracks map to the nearest facing barrier reef to the deep epicentre for the 1953 earthquake and associated tsunami. The observations are used to suggest that exceptionally large boulders perched on barrier or fringing reefs may be used as a criterion for the recognition of historical sites sites of earthquake and tsunami generation.