Late mid-Holocene sea-level oscillation: A possible cause

doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(96)00063-7

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 15, Issues 8–9, 1996, Pages 851-856

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-3791(96)00063-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

Sea level oscillated between 5500 and 3500 years ago at Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, Chezzetcook and Baie Verte, Nova Scotia and Montmagny, Quebec. The oscillation is well constrained by foraminiferal marsh zonations in three locations and by diatoms in the fourth one. The implications are: (1) there was a eustatic sea-level oscillation of about 2–10 m in the late mid-Holocene on the southeast coast of North America (South Carolina to Quebec) that is not predicted by present geophysical models of relative sea-level change; (2) this oscillation coincides with oceanographic cooling on the east coast of Canada that we associate with melting ice; and (3) this sea- level oscillation/climatic event coincides exactly with the end of pyramid building in Egypt which is suggested to have resulted from a climate change (i.e. drought, cooling).

This sea-level/climatic change is a prime example of feedback where climatic warming in the mid-Holocene promoted ice melt in the Arctic which subsequently caused climatic cooling by opening up Arctic channels releasing cold water into the Inner Labrador Current that continued to intensify until 4000 years ago. This sea-level event may also be the best way of measuring when the final ice melted since most estimates of the ages of the last melting are based on end moraine dates in the Arctic which may not coincide with when the last ice actually melted out, since there is no way of dating the final ice positions.

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Late mid-Holocene sea-level oscillation: A possible cause

Abstract

Sedimentary Geology

P. on North Queensland, Australia. Marine Geology

Quaternary Research

Quaternary Research

Marine Micropaleontology

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

Marine Micropaleontology

Quaternary Research

Foraminifera in Winyah Bay and North Inlet marshes, South Carolina: Relationship to local pollution sources

Journal of Foraminiferal Research

New evidence from the southeastern United States for eustatic components in the late Holocene sea levels

Geoarcheology

Evidence for a sea-level lowstand between 4500 and 2400 years b.p. on the southeast coast of the United States

Journal of Sedimentary Petrology

Sea-level history and Quaternary evolution of river mouth-associated beach-ridge plains along the east-southeast Brazilian coast — a summary

Advance of east Antarctic outlet glaciers during the hypsithermal: implications for the volume state of the Antarctic ice sheet under global warming

Geology

Global sea level rise

Journal of Geophysical Research

Postglacial emergence in the Canadian High Arctic: integrating glacioisostacy, eustasy, and late deglaciation

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences

A 17,000-year glacio-eustatic sea level record: Influence of glacial melting rates in the Younger Dryas event and deep ocean circulation

Nature

A late Holocene sea-level irregularity in South Carolina

Geodynamique des lignes de rivage Quaternaires du continent Africain et applications