A “chaos” of Phanerozoic eustatic curves

• Alternative eustatic reconstructions for many geological periods.
• Difficulties in correlation of eustatic events because of different time scales used.
• 6 eustatic events in late Cambrian and 9 events in Late Cretaceous are undisputable.
• Significant uncertainty in knowledge of Phanerozoic eustasy.
• Problem with awareness of new eustatic reconstructions.

The knowledge of eustasy has changed during the past two decades. Although there is not any single global sea-level curve for the entire Phanerozoic, new curves have been proposed for all periods. For some geological time intervals, there are two and more alternative reconstructions, from which it is difficult to choose. A significant problem is the available eustatic curves are justified along different geological time scales (sometimes without proper explanations), which permits to correlate eustatic events with the possible error of 1–3 Ma. This degree of error permits to judge about only substage- or stage-order global sea-level changes. Close attention to two geological time slices, namely the late Cambrian (Epoch 3‒Furongian) and the Late Cretaceous, implies that only a few eustatic events (6 events in the case of the late Cambrian and 9 events in the case of the Late Cretaceous) appear on all available alternative curves for these periods, and different (even opposite) trends of eustatic fluctuations are shown on these curves. This reveals significant uncertainty in our knowledge of eustasy that restricts our ability to decipher factors responsible for regional transgressions and regressions and relative sea-level changes. A big problem is also inadequate awareness of the geological research community of the new eustatic developments. Generally, the situation with the development and the use of the Phanerozoic eustatic reconstructions seems to be “chaotic”. The example of the shoreline shifts in Northern Africa during the Late Cretaceous demonstrates the far-going consequences of this situation. The practical recommendations to avoid this “chaos” are proposed. Particularly, these claim for good awareness of all eustatic developments, their critical discussion, and clear explanation of the employed geological time scale.

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