Quaternary sea-level history of the United States

Authors

Daniel R. Muhs, U.S. Geological SurveyFollow
John F. Wehmiller, University of Delaware
Kathleen R. Simmons, U.S. Geological SurveyFollow
Linda L. York, U.S. National Park Service

Date of this Version

2004

Citation

In: The Quaternary Period in the United States, ed. A.R. Gillespie, S.C. Porter, & B.F. Atwater, Developments in Quaternary Science, vol. 1 (Amsterdam et al.: Elsevier, 2004), pp. 147–183.

DOI:10.1016/S1571-0866(03)01008-X

Comments

U.S. government work

Abstract

In the past 30 years, there have been tremendous advances in our understanding of Quaternary sea-level history, due directly to developments in Quaternary dating methods, particularly uranium-series disequilibrium and amino acid racemization. Another reason for this progress is that coastline history can now be tied to the oxygen-isotope record of foraminifera in deep-sea cores. Furthermore, both records have been linked to climate change on the scale of glacial-interglacial cycles that are thought to be forced by changes in Earth-Sun geometry, or “orbital forcing” (Milankovitch, 1941).