Today our guest is Prof. Andrew Green, Professor marine geology and sedimentology at the Geological Sciences School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of KwaZulu-Natal.

• An international study led out of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and published in the journal Nature Geoscience has used state-of-the-art techniques to investigate seabed sediments.
• Sediment is a physical substance that settles to the bottom of a liquid - in this case the ocean.
• The study revealed that severe tropical cyclones made landfall on the eastern coast of South Africa in the past and that under projected climate change conditions, these damaging phenomena could arise in the future.
• While reconstructions of past storminess exist for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the same cannot be said for much of the Indian Ocean, making this research important in filling a gap in knowledge to help understand what could happen under changing climate conditions and rising sea levels.
• A team of geologists, lead by Head of the UKZN Marine Geology Research Unit Professor Andrew Green, examined the sediment record from the seabed off the coast of Durban and found that there was a period – under higher sea levels – when storms were much more extreme than they are now.