1 / 31

Understanding Mean Sea Level Changes Over Geological Time Scales

Explore the concepts of Mean Sea Level, processes influencing sea level changes, Eustatic vs. Relative Sea Level, geological proxies for sea level change, plate tectonics, and glacial cycles impacting sea levels.

lgood
Download Presentation

Understanding Mean Sea Level Changes Over Geological Time Scales

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Surface of Equal Density (Pacific example) Diapycnal Diffusivity

  2. High Resolution Profiler

  3. Sea-Level changes

  4. Learning Objectives • The shape of the planet: difference between Geoid and Ellipsoid • The concept of Mean Sea Level • Article: http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html • Processes that control the Mean Sea Level and its changes • Sea level changes over millions of year • Sea level changes over the recent geologic past

  5. What does it mean to be at an altitude of 4000 m?

  6. What does it mean to be at an altitude of 4000 m? It means that I am 4000 m above the Mean Sea Level (MSL)

  7. Model of the shape of the Earth geoid: The equipotential surface of the Earth's gravity field which best fits, in a least squares sense, global mean sea level (MSL) http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/geoid_def.html

  8. by definition: • Mean Sea Level = 0 m = equilibrium level • Changes in sea level can be caused by: • Changes in volume of water • Changes in shape and volume of ocean basins • Changes are measured as relative changes to a reference level • This reference level can be a fixed one (e.g. distance from the center of the earth = eustatic) or local (coastline = relative).

  9. A change in volume of seawater in one ocean will affect the level in all others. Any such world-wide change in sea-level is called EUSTATIC SEA-LEVEL change A change in local sea level measured with respect to a land reference point is referred to as a RELATIVE SEA-LEVEL change

  10. Sea Level Change ?

  11. Other effects of plate tectonics e.g. Upper Cretaceous (90 Ma) MSL > 300 m

  12. Summary of spatial-temporal scale of processes contributing to Mean Sea Level (D) Plate Tectonics 100 m (C) Melting of ICE Load from ice sheets deforms crust • Thickness and area of • continental crust • Thermal state (age) of crust • sediment loading MSL (meters) 10 m (A) Exchange of water with continents (Groundwater, Lakes, etc.) (B) Temperature expansion 1 m NOTE: A,B,C  change in volume of water D  change in shape of container 1 cm 1000 100 Ka 10 Ma 100 Ma 1 day 100 TIME (years)

  13. Other processes complicating the study of mean sea level (ice or sediment loads) The concept of Post Glacial Rebound: Scandinavia is STILL bouncing back up from glaciers that melted 10 thousand years ago !!!

  14. Last Glacial Maximum: 20 thousand years ago Laurentide Ice Sheet, 3-4km thick All this ice caused a EUSTATIC sea level drop of 125m How do we know this?

  15. Aerial view of glaciated Bylot Island, Canada U-shaped valley Glacial Striations Glacial Flow

  16. OK, so we’ve mapped the extent of glaciation. Now what?

  17. Date coral samples from various paleo-sea levels. Barbados is the “dipstick” for eustatic sea level reconstruction Now what?

  18. Corals for paleo-sea level reconstruction From corals we know that LGM sea level was -125m

  19. The world looked different during the LGM

  20. The subsidence of the Northern Sea (associated with relaxation from glacial loading) Rate of change in Sea Level mm/year Scandinavia Northern Sea Great Britain

  21. Geological proxy for sea level change: 18O/16O in foraminifera Oxygen has two stable isotopes: 16O (99.8%) and 18O (0.2%) Rainfall and Ice are very depleted in 18O (lots more 16O) So when you build ice sheets, ocean loses 16O, becomes 18O-rich Forams record ocean 18O/16O ratio in shells 21,000 ybp

  22. Take-home points: • eustatic vs. local sea level • lots of new, young, hot crust means higher sea level; • tectonic changes on 10-100Ma timescales  Wilson cycle • glacial cycles have several impacts on sea level: • 1) ice sheets remove water  lower sea level • 2) glacial loading/unloading reshapes crust under • and surrounding ice sheets • - changes occur on 10-100ky timescales • tools for studying sea level change through geologic time: • 1) radiocarbon-date marine shells & corals found at • known elevation (above MSL) and depth (below MSL) • 2) deep-sea sediment 18O record

More Related