convener:Wataru Tanikawa(Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Kochi Instutute for Core Sample Research), Tokuyama Hidekazu(Center for advanced marine core research, Kochi University), Shintaro Yamasaki(Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University)

Human-made tools and architectures on seafloors or submerged under marine sediments at coastal sites teach us not only history of human activities but records of natural disasters which associate with human activities. For instance, tsunami, caused by 1498 Meio earthquake and sector collapse of Mt. Bandai in Japan (1888) caused submergence of villages in sub-lacustrine (Lake Hamanako and Lake Hibara). Volcanic eruption of Mt. Fugen (known as Shimabara Taihen) changed underwater topographic features at a coastal site. Therefore, underwater archaeological subjects may record historical natural disasters and inform their scale and characters However, underwater archaeological study in Japan considerably falls behind the other countries. For instance, Japanese government officially marks about 300 underwater remains, whereas more than 36000 sites are identified as underwater remains in UK. Underwater geoarchaeological study has difficulties for accessibility, high cost, and limitation of analytical method and tools. On the contrary, submerged material are sometimes less weathered, and less artificial modification. Therefore, we may obtain very pure data. Recently, innovative underwater techniques and tools are developing, though, they are not enough applied to underwater geoarchaeological studies. Therefore, this session provides an opportunity to meet the various communities between earth science, archaeology, and geoengineering to discuss current problems and future scopes in underwater disaster geoarchaeology.