The Holocene Sea Stage Highstand

Visitor geological word by David Middleton

Most skeptics are conversant in the Warmunist efforts to erase the Medieval Heat Interval and Little Ice Age.

Determine zero. Mann’s notorious Hockey Stick (IPCC, 2001)

Nonetheless, many skeptics might not be conscious of efforts to erase one other paleoclimatological function: The Holocene Highstand.

What’s a highstand?

A highstand is one section of the ocean degree cycle (AAPG Wiki)

RisingHighstandFallingLowstand

The highstand is the utmost sea degree achieved in the course of the cycle.

The Holocene Epoch

The Holocene Epoch was just lately formally subdivided into three levels:

Greenlandian Stage = Decrease or Early-Holocene. 11.70 ka to eight.33 ka Northgrippian Stage = Center or Mid-Holocene. eight.33 ka to Four.25 ka Meghalayan Stage = Higher or Late-Holocene. Four.25 ka to current

The abbreviation “ka” refers to 1000’s of years in the past. Decrease, Center and Higher are usually used when referring to rock-time models. Early, Mid and Late are usually used when referring to time models (Haile, 1987). Previous to the formal subdivision, Decrease/Early, Center/Mid and Higher/Late had been generally used; nevertheless there was no formal nomenclature. The pretend phrase, “Anthropocene” is just not utilized by actual geologists.

There’s additionally a casual climatological subdivision of the Holocene:

Preboreal 10 ka–9Boreal 9 ka–eight kaAtlantic eight ka–5 kaSubboreal 5 ka–2.5 kaSubatlantic 2.5 ka–current

Supply: Wikipedia

Why would there have been a Mid- to Late-Holocene highstand?

The so-called consensus would really like for folks to consider that sea degree had been comparatively static all through many of the Holocene, solely starting to rise after Col. Drake drilled the primary American oil nicely in Titusville PA. Being a geologist, and having gone to varsity within the 1970’s, I used to be taught that Holocene sea ranges fluctuated and had been usually larger than current day in the course of the Mid- to Late-Holocene.

Determine 1. Holocene sea degree curves from Moore & Curray, 1974.

Proof of those larger sea ranges is now “defined away” as ocean siphoning. Whereas ocean siphoning is an actual phenomenon and the Mid- to Late-Holocene Highstand was not globally synchronous, there’s loads of geological proof to help it and two very logical causes for it to have occurred:

The Mid-Holocene was a lot hotter than right this moment and the Little Ice Age featured the coldest local weather of the Holocene Epoch. The Mid-Holocene was host to the epoch’s glacial minimal, the glacial most occurred close to the top of the Little Ice Age within the mid-1800’s. The glacial enlargement interval is called Neoglaciation.

Hotter and fewer ice 6,000 to three,000 years in the past, coldest temperatures and most ice extent 500 to 150 years in the past, means that the Mid- to Late-Holocene sea degree ought to have been larger than that of the Little Ice Age.

Determine 2. Observe that that in Central Greenland the Little Ice Age was as chilly because the final Pleistocne glacial interstadial, the Bølling-Allerød. three,000 years earlier than current is marked with a purple arrow.

Determine three. Andy Might’s Holocene local weather reconstruction additionally signifies that the Little Ice Age featured the coldest local weather of the Holocene Epoch.

Determine Four. three,000 years in the past, the Alps had been comparatively ice-free. Most glaciation occurred within the mid-1800’s. (Grossjean et al., 2007)

A lot of the geological proof means that sea ranges ought to have been at their highest 6,000 to three,000 years in the past and will have been falling from three,000 to about 150 years in the past… with or with out ExxonMobil.

The ocean degree reconstruction of Jevrejeva et al., 2014 (J14) signifies that sea degree was falling within the early 1800’s.

Determine 5. Sea degree reconstruction from tide gauge knowledge (Jevrejeva et al., 2014). Observe rock choose added for scale.

Geological proof for a Mid- to Late-Holocene highstand

I’m going to let the graphics largely communicate for themselves. On every graph I’ve famous which route is older, added within the J14 reconstruction on the similar scale and highlighted three,000 years in the past with a purple arrow.

Qatar/Arabian Sea: 1-2 meters larger than right this moment from 7,500 to three,000 years in the past…

Determine 6. Qatar/Arabian Gulf

Japanese Australia: 1-2 meters larger than right this moment from 7,000 to 2,000 years in the past…

Determine 7. Japanese Australia

Determine eight. Southeastern Australia

Malaysia: 1-5 meters larger than right this moment from 7,000 to 1,000 years in the past…

Determine 9. Malaysian Peninsula

Nice Barrier Reef: >1 meter larger than right this moment 6,000 years in the past… And the reef didn’t drown.

Determine 10. The Nice Barrier Reef… How did this “fragile” reef handle to outlive falling sea degree?

Japan: As a lot as 10 meters larger than right this moment 7,000 years in the past and steadily falling till 1800’s.

Determine 11. Japan

Southwest South Africa: three meters larger than right this moment 6,500 years in the past.

Determine 12. South Africa

Oahu, Hawaii: “2.00 ± zero.35” meters larger than right this moment three,500 years in the past.

Determine 13. Oahu, Hawaii

The fashionable rise in sea degree is barely noticeable in opposition to the backdrop of Holocene sea degree oscillations.

Determine 14. World since Youthful Dryas. Observe the error bar is ±12 meters.

Siddall et al., 2003 (linked) is a reconstruction of world sea degree over the previous 470,000 years constructed from Crimson Sea sediment cores.

Right here we analyse oxygen isotope data from Crimson Sea sediment cores to reconstruct the historical past of water residence occasions within the Crimson Sea. We then use a hydraulic mannequin of the water alternate between the Crimson Sea and the world ocean to derive the sill depth— and therefore international sea degree over the previous 470,000 years (470 kyr). Our reconstruction is correct to inside 612 m, and provides a centennial-scale decision from 70 to 25 kyr earlier than current.

Siddall et al., 2003

Brock et al., 2008 featured the Holocene portion of Siddall’s reconstruction, clearly demonstrating that sea degree was considerably larger than right this moment for many of the previous three,000 years.

Determine 15. World final 7,000 years, error bars omitted.

Sea degree reconstructions are terribly imprecise. Oxygen isotope chronologies can have error bars as giant as 30 meters (Siddall et al., 2003). Relationship error bars are additionally usually pretty giant. Fossil terraced seashores present among the finest proof for previous larger sea ranges, however they aren’t significantly straightforward to place into an Excel spreadsheet. Uplift and subsidence of the land can have a big influence on native sea degree modifications. Woodroffe & Horton, 2005 (linked) present a wonderful abstract of the strategies and challenges in reconstructing paleo-sea degree modifications.

Proof for the Mid- to Late-Holocene highstand(s) is just not current in all places. Proof is missing on the Mississippi delta (Törnqvist et al, 2004). Whereas it might not have been common or synchronous, there does seem like sturdy proof that Holocene sea ranges had been considerably larger than right this moment over a lot of the world and that previous pure oscillations had been of a lot larger magnitude than noticed sea degree modifications over the previous ~200 years.

Pierre Gosselin’s “No Methods Zone” has a pleasant compendium of papers documenting previous larger Holocene sea ranges.

The next papers or abstracts had been reviewed for the preparation of this put up. I’ve requested full texts from most of the authors and acquired two, because of James Innes and Brian Jones. As I dig deeper into this, I’ll attempt to compose a extra complete put up on Holocene sea degree modifications.

References

Brock, J.C.,  M. Palaseanu-Lovejoy, C.W. Wright, & A. Nayegandhi. (2008). “Patch-reef morphology as a proxy for Holocene sea-level variability, Northern Florida Keys, USA”. Coral Reefs. 27. 555-568. 10.1007/s00338-008-0370-y. 

Collins, Lindsay, Jian-xin Zhao & Heather Freeman. (2006). “A high-precision report of mid-late Holocene sea-level occasions from emergent coral pavements within the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, southwest Australia”. Quaternary Worldwide. 145. 78-85. 10.1016/j.quaint.2005.07.zero06.

Compton, John. (2001). “Holocene sea-level fluctuations inferred from the evolution of depositional environments of the southern Langebaan Lagoon salt marsh, South Africa”. The Holocene. 114. 395-405. 10.1191/095968301678302832.

Correggiari, Annamaria,Fabio Trincardi, Leonardo Langone & Marco Roveri. (2001). “Types of Failure in Late Holocene Highstand Prodelta Wedges on the Adriatic Shelf”. Journal of Sedimentary Analysis. 71. 218-236. 10.1306/042800710218.

Fletcher, Charles & A.T.Jones,. (1996). “Sea-level Highstand Recorded in Holocene Shoreline Deposits on Oahu, Hawaii”. Journal of Sedimentary Analysis. 66. 632-641. 10.1306/D42683CE-2B26-11D7-8648000102C1865D. Summary solely.

Gayes, Paul, DAVID B. SCOTT, ERIC S. COLLINS & DOUGLAS D. NELSON. (1992). “A late Holocene sea-level fluctuation in South Carolina”. Quaternary coasts of the USA. 155-160. 10.2110/pec.92.48.zero155. Summary solely.

Gonzalez, Juan & Torbjörn Törnqvist. (2009). “A brand new Late Holocene sea-level report from the Mississippi Delta: proof for a local weather/sea degree connection?”. Quaternary Science Evaluations. 28. 1737-1749. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.04.003.

Grosjean, Martin, Suter, Peter, Trachsel, Mathias & Wanner, Heinz. (2007). “Ice‐borne prehistoric finds within the Swiss Alps replicate Holocene glacier fluctuations”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 22. 203 – 207. 10.1002/jqs.1111.

Grossman, Eric, Fletcher, Charles & Richmond, Bruce. (1998). “The Holocene sea-level highstand within the equatorial Pacific: Evaluation of the insular paleosea-level database”. Coral Reefs. 17. 309-327. 10.1007/s003380050132.

Grossman, Eric & Charles Fletcher. (1998). “Sea degree larger than current 3500 years in the past on the northern predominant Hawaiian Islands”. Geology. 26. 10.1130/0091-7613(1998)zero26<0363:SLHTPY>2.three.CO;2.

Haile, N.S. “Time and age in geology: The usage of higher/decrease, late/early in stratigraphic nomenclature”. Marine and Petroleum Geology. Quantity Four, Challenge three. 1987. Pages 255-257. ISSN zero264-8172, https://doi.org/10.1016/zero264-8172(87)90048-1 (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0264817287900481)

Jameson, J., C. Strohmenger. “Late Pleistocene to Holocene Sea-Stage Historical past of Qatar: Implications for Eustasy and Tectonics”. AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90142 © 2012 AAPG Annual Conference and Exhibition, April 22-25, 2012, Lengthy Seashore, California.

Jevrejeva, S. , J.C. Moore, A. Grinsted, A.P. Matthews, G. Spada. 2014.  “Tendencies and acceleration in international and regional sea ranges since 1807”.  World and Planetary Change. %vol 113, 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.12.zero04 https://www.psmsl.org/merchandise/reconstructions/jevrejevaetal2014.php

Khan, Nicole, Erica Ashe, Benjamin P. Horton, Andrea Dutton, Robert E. Kopp, Gilles Brocard, Simon E. Engelhart, David F. Hill, W.R. Peltier, Christopher H. Vane, & Fred N. Scatena. (2016). “Drivers of Holocene sea-level change within the Caribbean”.  Quaternary Science Evaluations. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.08.032

Kench, Paul, Scott Smithers, Roger Mclean & Scott Nichol. (2009). “Holocene reef development within the Maldives: Proof of a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand within the central Indian Ocean”. Geology. 37. 455-458. 10.1130/G25590A.1.

Kermode, S, Gibling, Martin, Jones, Brian, Cohen, T., Value, David & Daley, James. (2013). “Figuring out the influence of the Holocene highstand on the coastal‐fluvial interface, Shoalhaven River, south‐jap Australia”. Earth Floor Processes and Landforms. 38. 10.1002/esp.3382.  Summary solely.

Lee, Stephen, Matthew Currell & Dioni Cendón. (2015). “Marine water from mid-Holocene sea degree highstand trapped in a coastal aquifer: Proof from groundwater isotopes, and environmental significance”. The Science of the entire setting. 544. 995-1007. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.12.zero14.

Leonard, N.D., Welsh, Okay.J., Clark, T.R., Feng, Y.Y., Pandolfi, J.M., & Zhao, J. (2018). “New proof for “far-field” Holocene sea degree oscillations and hyperlinks to international local weather data”.  Earth and Planetary Science Letters Quantity 487, 1 April 2018, Pages 67-73
DOI:10.1016/j.epsl.2018.02.008

Lessa, Guilherme & Masselink, Gerhard. (2006). “Proof of a Mid-Holocene Sea Stage Highstand from the Sedimentary Report of a Macrotidal Barrier and Paleoestuary System in Northwestern Australia”. Journal of Coastal Analysis. 22. 10.2112/05A-0009.1.

Lobo, Francisco José & Luis Fernández Salas, F Hernández-Molina, R González, Joao Dias, V Díaz-del-Río & Luis Somoza. (2005). “Holocene highstand deposits within the Gulf of Cadiz, SW Iberian Peninsula: A high-resolution report of hierarchical environmental modifications”. Marine Geology. 219. 109-131. 10.1016/j.margeo.2005.06.zero05.

Lengthy, Antony J., Natasha Barlow, Sue Dawson, Jon Hill, James Innes, Catherine Kelham, Fraser Milne & Alastair Dawson. (2016). “Lateglacial and Holocene relative sea-level modifications and first proof for the Storegga tsunami in Sutherland, Scotland: SEA LEVEL CHANGES IN NORTHERN SCOTLAND”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 31. 239-255. 10.1002/jqs.2862.

Mann, Thomas, Rovere, Alessio, Schöne, Tilo, Klicpera, André, Stocchi, Paolo, Lukman, Muhammad & Westphal, Hildegard. (2015). “The magnitude of a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand within the Strait of Makassar”. Geomorphology. 257. 10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.12.023.  Summary solely.

Might, Andy. “A Holocene Temperature Reconstruction Half Four: The World Reconstruction.” Watts Up With That?, 9 June 2017, wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/09/a-holocene-temperature-reconstruction-part-Four-the-global-reconstruction/.

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Rice, Johnathan Aaron & Alexander Simms. The Holocene Historical past and Facies Structure of the Nueces Bayhead Delta of the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico. (2015). UC Santa Barbara, Masters Thesis. https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content material/qt31ok339wf/qt31ok339wf.pdf

Sarti, G., Rossi, V., Amorosi, A., Bini, M., Giacomelli, S., Pappalardo, M., … Sammartino, I. (2015). “Climatic signature of two mid–late Holocene fluvial incisions fashioned underneath sea-level highstand circumstances (Pisa coastal plain, NW Tuscany, Italy)”. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 424, 183–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PALAEO.2015.02.zero20

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Siddall M, Rohling EJ, Almogi-Labin A, Hemleben C, Meischner D, Scmelzer I, Smeed DA (2003). “Sea-level fluctuations over the past glacial cycle”. Nature 423:853–858 LINK

Simms, Alexander, Niranjan Aryal, Yusuke Yokoyama Hiroyuki Matsuzaki & Dewitt, Regina. (2009). “Insights on a Proposed Mid-Holocene Highstand Alongside the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico from the Evolution of Small Coastal Ponds”. Journal of Sedimentary Analysis – J SEDIMENT RES. 79. 757-772. 10.2110/jsr.2009.079. Summary solely.

Strachan, Kate, Jemma Finch, Trevor Hill & Robert Barnett. (2014). “A late Holocene sea-level curve for the east coast of South Africa”. South African Journal of Science. 110. 1-9. 10.1590/sajs.2014/20130198.

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Törnqvist, Torbjörn, Juan Gonzalez, Lee Newsom, Klaas van der Borg, Arie F. M. de Jong & Charles W. Kurnik. (2004). “Deciphering Holocene sea-level historical past on the U.S. Gulf Coast: A high-resolution report from the Mississippi Delta”. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 116. 1026-1039. 10.1130/B2525478.1.

Umitsu, Masatomo. (1991). “Holocene Sea-Stage Modifications and Coastal Evolution in Japan”. The Quaternary Analysis (daiyonki-kenkyu). 30. 187-196. 10.4116/jaqua.30.187.

Woodroffe, S & Benjamin Horton. (2005). “Holocene sea-level modifications within the Indo-Pacific”. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. 25. 29-43. 10.1016/j.jseaes.2004.01.zero09. LINK

Zong, Yongqiang. (2004). “Mid-Holocene sea-level highstand alongside the Southeast Coast of China”.  Quaternary Worldwide.  Elsevier.  Summary solely.

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