A paleoecological record of historical hurricane events from the Florida Everglades

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Palynological, loss-on-ignition, and X-ray fluorescence analysis are performed on a 5.25 m sediment core from a mangrove forest at the mouth of the Shark River Slough in the Everglades National Park, Florida, to infer the occurrence of major hurricanes over a ~5700-yr period. The results suggest that in addition to Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the southwestern Everglades was directly impacted by at least six major hurricanes at ~3000, 1700, 950, 580, 350, and 120 cal yr BP. By ~1100 cal yr BP, as the shoreline became stabilized, a multi-species fringe mangrove forest was formed at the mouth of the Shark River.