1. A Revised Late Holocene Sea-Level Record for Northern Massachusetts, USA.
- Author
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Donnelly, Jeffrey P.
- Subjects
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ABSOLUTE sea level change , *HOLOCENE paleoclimatology , *RADIOCARBON dating , *MASS spectrometry , *SPECTRUM analysis , *SALT marshes , *HALOPHYTES , *CLIMATE change , *GLOBAL warming , *LAND subsidence - Abstract
Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of basal high-marsh sediments from Romney Marsh, Revere, Massachusetts, provides a revised reconstruction of the late Holocene relative sea-level history of the region. After correction for changes in tidal amplitude, the sea-level change envelope reconstructed from five AMS radiocarbon dates of basal marsh sediments at Romney Marsh in Revere, Massachusetts, indicates a rise in mean sea level (MSL) of close to 2.6 m in the past 3300 years. The data indicate a possible decrease in the average rate of rise from 0.80 ± 0.25 mm/y between 3300 to 1000 YBP to a rate of 0.52 ± 0.62 mm/y between 1000 YBP and the past 150 to 500 years. An increase in the rate of sea-level rise is evident over the past few hundred years. A slowing of the rate of sea-level rise between 1000 YBP and historic times and the increase in the rate of rise to modern values is also evident in other sea-level records from Maine and Connecticut. The coherence between these sea-level records and concomitant climate changes in and around the North Atlantic indicates that regional-scale sea-level fluctuations in the region may be driven by climate forcing. However, earlier sea-level fluctuations correlated to sea-surface temperature variability are not well-resolved by this record or other records in the region and may indicate that changes in sea level are not tightly coupled with sea-surface temperature changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006
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