USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
Reconstructing common era relative sea-level change on the gulf coast of Florida.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
ISSN
0025-3227
Abstract
To address a paucity of Common Era data in the Gulf of Mexico, we reconstructed ~1.1 m of relative sea-level (RSL) rise over the past ~2000 years at Little Manatee River (Gulf Coast of Florida, USA). We applied a regional-scale foraminiferal transfer function to fossil assemblages preserved in a core of salt-marsh peat and organic silt that was dated using radiocarbon and recognition of pollution, 137Cs and pollen chronohorizons. Our proxy reconstruction was combined with tide-gauge data from four nearby sites spanning 1913–2014 CE. Application of an Errors-in-Variables Integrated Gaussian Process (EIV-IGP) model to the combined proxy and instrumental dataset demonstrates that RSL fell from ~350 to 100 BCE, before rising continuously to present. This initial RSL fall was likely the result of local-scale processes (e.g., silting up of a tidal flat or shallow sub-tidal shoal) as saltmarsh development at the site began. Since ~0 CE, we consider the reconstruction to be representative of regional-scale RSL trends. We removed a linear rate of 0.3 mm/yr from the RSL record using the EIV-IGP model to estimate climate-driven sea-level trends and to facilitate comparison among sites. This analysis demonstrates that since ~0 CE sea level did not deviate significantly from zero until accelerating continuously from ~1500 CE to present. Sea level was rising at 1.33 mm/yr in 1900 CE and accelerated until 2014 CE when a rate of 2.02 mm/yr was attained, which is the fastest, century-scale trend in the ~2000-year record. Comparison to existing reconstructions from the Gulf coast of Louisiana and the Atlantic coast of northern Florida reveal similar sea-level histories at all three sites. We explored the influence of compaction and fluvial processes on our reconstruction and concluded that compaction was likely insignificant. Fluvial processes were also likely insignificant, but further proxy evidence is needed to fully test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that no significant Common Era sea-level changes took place on the Gulf and southeastern Atlantic U.S. coasts until the onset of modern sea-level rise in the late 19th century.
Publisher
Elsevier B.V.
Recommended Citation
Gerlach, M. J., Engelhart, S. E., Kemp, A. C., Moyer, R. P., Smoak, J. M., Bernhardt, C. E., & Cahill, N. (2017). Reconstructing common era relative sea-level change on the gulf coast of Florida. Marine Geology, 390, 254-269. doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2017.07.001
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Citation only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.