Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6445819 | Quaternary Science Reviews | 2015 | 10 Pages |
Abstract
Few records of late Quaternary relative sea level (RSL) are available for the Pacific coast of North America south of San Francisco Bay, a region where RSL data would be particularly useful for constraining vertical rates of tectonic motion. This paper provides the first regional, uplift-corrected late Quaternary RSL history for southern California derived from a compilation of 132 previously published and unpublished radiocarbon ages from nearshore, estuarine, and freshwater deposits in sediment cores from coastal southern California. We also provide a local, uplift-corrected RSL history for Monterey Bay, central California, generated from 48 radiocarbon ages from Elkhorn Slough and surrounding environments. Our resulting compilations show rapid sea-level rise from 15 ka which begins to decelerate to present mean sea level (PMSL) between 6 and 8 ka. Late Holocene (<4 ka) sea-level rise averaged 0.8 ± 0.3 mm aâ1 in southern California and 1.3 ± 0.19 mm aâ1 along Monterey Bay in central California. Both rates of late Holocene RSL rise calculated are lower than recent RSL rates from southern California (â¼1.61 ± 0.34 to 2.4 ± 1.04 mm aâ1) and Monterey Bay (1.49 ± 0.95 mm aâ1), derived from uplift-corrected, 20th century tide gauge data. This new RSL data fills geographical gaps in relative sea-level histories, as well as provides important datums for local tectonic processes.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Geology
Authors
Laura C. Reynolds, Alexander R. Simms,