scholarly journals New findings on palynofacies characteristics of semi-enclosed deep-sea environments in the East Sea over 2 million years

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongmi Kim ◽  
Sangheon Yi ◽  
Chang-Pyo Jun ◽  
Eunmi Lee ◽  
Gil Young Kim

Abstract Phytoclasts in the form of plant debris in terrestrial sediments can be transported by water to distant areas because they are lighter than inorganic particles. The semi-enclosed East Sea, which is connected by narrow straits to other seas, is adjacent to continental shelves that are the source area of terrestrial sediment flowing into the East Sea. These shelves alternated repeatedly between terrestrial and marine environments as a result of eustatic sea-level changes during the Late Quaternary. Palynofacies analyses of the IODP Exp. 346 U1430 core, located in the Eastern South Korea Plateau (ESKP) of the East Sea, have revealed changes in the size and concentration of phytoclasts associated with glacial–interglacial cycles. These changes are generally negatively correlated with the global sea-level curve, and their anti-phase cycles with high amplitude are clearly evident during the last ca. 750 ka with the geotectonic stabilization period. In particular, several coarse-grained phytoclasts were observed during the glacial period, including the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). These findings suggest that the concentration and size of phytoclasts flowing into the East Sea were influenced by changes in the distance of the source area, depending on the water depth of the strait and nearby shelves owing to sea-level changes in tandem with glacial–interglacial cycles and geotectonic events.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 427
Author(s):  
Veronica Rossi ◽  
Alessandro Amorosi ◽  
Marco Marchesini ◽  
Silvia Marvelli ◽  
Andrea Cocchianella ◽  
...  

The Gulf of La Spezia (GLS) in Northwest Italy is a rocky embayment with low fluvial influence facing the Mediterranean Sea. Past landscape dynamics were investigated through a multi-proxy, facies-based analysis down to a core depth of 30 m. The integration of quantitative ostracod, foraminifera, and pollen analyses, supported by radiocarbon ages, proved to be a powerful tool to unravel the late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental evolution and its forcing factors. The complex interplay between relative sea-level (RSL), climatic changes, and geomorphological features of the embayment drove four main evolution phases. A barrier–lagoon system developed in response to the rising RSL of the Late Pleistocene (likely the Last Interglacial). The establishment of glacial conditions then promoted the development of an alluvial environment, with generalised erosion of the underlying succession and subsequent accumulation of fluvial strata. The Holocene transgression (dated ca. 9000 cal year BP) caused GLS inundation and the formation of a low-confined lagoon basin, which rapidly turned into a coastal bay from ca. 8000 cal year BP onwards. This latter environmental change occurred in response to the last Holocene stage of global sea-level acceleration, which submerged a morphological relief currently forming a drowned barrier-island complex in the embayment.


Geobios ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 40-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Gabriella Carboni ◽  
Luisa Bergamin ◽  
Letizia Di Bella ◽  
Fabrizia Iamundo ◽  
Nevio Pugliese

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustav Pallisgaard-Olesen ◽  
Vivi Kathrine Pedersen ◽  
Natalya Gomez

<div> <p>The landscape in western Scandinavia has undergone dramatic changes through numerous glaciations during the Quaternary. These changes in topography and in the volumes of offshore sediment deposits, have caused significant isostatic adjustments and local sea level changes, owing to erosional unloading and depositional loading of the lithosphere. Mass redistribution from erosion and deposition also has the potential to cause significant pertubations of the geoid, resulting in additional sea-level changes. The combined sea-level response from these processes, is yet to be investigated in detail for Scandinavia.</p> </div><div> <p>In this study we estimate the total sea level change from late-Pliocene- Quaternary glacial erosion and deposition in the Scandinavian region, using a gravitationally self-consistent global sea level model that includes the full viscoelastic response of the solid Earth to surface loading and unloading. In addition to the total late Pliocene-Quaternary mass redistribution, we <span>also </span>estimate transient sea level changes related specifically to the two latest glacial cycles.</p> </div><div> <p>We utilize existing observations of offshore sediment thicknesses of glacial origin, and combine these with estimates of onshore glacial erosion and estimates of erosion on the inner shelf. Based on these estimates, we can define mass redistribution and construct a preglacial landscape setting.</p> </div><div> <p>Our preliminary results show <span>perturbations of</span> the local sea level up to ∼ 200 m since<span> the</span> late-Pliocene in the Norwegian Sea, suggesting that erosion and deposition ha<span>ve</span> influenced the local paleo sea level history in Scandinavia significantly.</p> </div>


Geologos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-111
Author(s):  
Amrollah Safari ◽  
Hossein Ghanbarloo ◽  
Parisa Mansoury ◽  
Mehran Mohammadian Esfahani

AbstractDuring the Rupelian–Chattian, the Qom Basin (northern seaway basin) was located between the Paratethys in the north and the southern Tethyan seaway in the south. The Oligocene deposits (Qom Formation) in the Qom Basin have been interpreted for a reconstruction of environmental conditions during deposition, as well as of the influence of local fault activities and global sea level changes expressed within the basin. We have also investigated connections between the Qom Basin and adjacent basins. Seven microfacies types have been distinguished in the former. These microfacies formed within three major depositional environments, i.e., restricted lagoon, open lagoon and open marine. Strata of the Qom Formation are suggested to have been formed in an open-shelf system. In addition, the deepening and shallowing patterns noted within the microfacies suggest the presence of three third-order sequences in the Bijegan area and two third-order depositional sequences and an incomplete depositional sequence in the Naragh area. Our analysis suggests that, during the Rupelian and Chattian stages, the depositional sequences of the Qom Basin were influenced primarily by local tectonics, while global sea level changes had a greater impact on the southern Tethyan seaway and Paratethys basins. The depositional basins of the Tethyan seaway (southern Tethyan seaway, Paratethys Basin and Qom Basin) were probably related during the Burdigalian to Langhian and early Serravallian.


Author(s):  
Jan Zalasiewicz

In almost everybody’s natural lifetime, the sea is one of the great unchanging certainties of life. There is land; there is sea; and in between is that magical place, the seaside, which is sometimes knocked about a bit by the waves, but always manages to recover for that next idyllic summer. There are, one remembers, those faintly disquieting legends, about a remarkably well-organized and ecologically aware person called Noah, and about a Deluge. But these, of course, should not be taken seriously. They were a jumpy and superstitious lot, our ancestors, always prone to making up scary stories. It was a good way to keep the children in order. With a longer perspective, things seem a little different. Take any one location on the globe, for instance. Track it over millions of years. At that one location, there may be a change from deep ocean, to shallow sea, to a shoreline, and thence to terrestrial swamps and flood plains. And then, perhaps, to the absence of evidence, a horizon of absolutely no thickness at all within a succession of rock strata, in which a million years or a hundred million years—or more—may be missing, entirely unrecorded. It is that phenomenon called an unconformity, all that is left of the history of a terrestrial landscape pushed up into the erosional realm. On that eroding landscape, there may have been episodes of battle, murder, and sudden death among armoured saurians, of fire, flood, and storm, and of the humdrum day-to-day life of the vast vegetarian dinosaurs, chewing through their daily hundredweights of plants. Of this, no trace can persist. Only when that landscape is plunged again towards sea level, and begins to be silted up, can a tangible geological record resume. The Earth’s crust, as we have seen, is malleable, can be pushed downwards or thrust upwards by the forces that drive the continents across the face of the globe. Many of the sea level changes that can be read in the strata of the archives are of this sort, and mark purely local ups and downs of individual sections of crust, with no evidence that global sea level was anything other than constant.


2020 ◽  
Vol 553 ◽  
pp. 60-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinmay Dash ◽  
Manoj K. Jaiswal ◽  
Pitambar Pati ◽  
Narendra Kumar Patel ◽  
Atul Kumar Singh ◽  
...  

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Adam

Saltmarshes are a major, widely distributed, intertidal habitat. They are dynamic systems, responding to changing environmental conditions. For centuries, saltmarshes have been subject to modification or destruction because of human activity. In this review, the range of factors influencing the survival of saltmarshes is discussed. Of critical importance are changes in relative sea level and in tidal range. Relative sea level is affected by changes in absolute sea level, changes in land level and the capacity of saltmarshes to accumulate and retain sediment. Many saltmarshes are starved of sediment because of catchment modification and coastal engineering, or exposed to erosive forces, which may be of natural origin or reflect human interference. The geographical distribution of individual saltmarsh species reflects climate, so that global climatic change will be reflected by changes in distribution and abundance of species, although the rate of change in communities dominated by perennial plants is difficult to predict. Humans have the ability to create impacts on saltmarshes at a range of scales from individual sites to globally. Pressures on the environment created by the continued increase in the human population, particularly in developing tropical countries, and the likely consequences of the enhanced greenhouse effect on both temperature and sea level give rise to particular concerns. Given the concentration of population growth and development in the coastal zone, and the potential sensitivity of saltmarsh to change in sea level, it is timely to review the present state of saltmarshes and to assess the likelihood of changes in the near (25 years) future. By 2025, global sea level rise and warming will have impacts on saltmarshes. However, the most extensive changes are likely to be the direct result of human actions at local or regional scales. Despite increasing recognition of the ecological value of saltmarsh, major projects involving loss of saltmarshes but deemed to be in the public interest will be approved. Pressures are likely to be particularly severe in the tropics, where very little is known about saltmarshes. At the local scale the cumulative impacts of activities, which individually have minor effects, may be considerable. Managers of saltmarshes will be faced with difficult choices including questions as to whether traditional uses should be retained, whether invasive alien species or native species increasing in abundance should be controlled, whether planned retreat is an appropriate response to rising relative sea level or whether measures can be taken to reduce erosion. Decisions will need to take into account social and economic as well as ecological concerns.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document