Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems

Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems Project #274 Quaternary Coastal Evolution - This Special Publication represents the major cumulative contribution of the Working Group of the United States of America to IGCP Project 274. The primary aims of Project 274 are to: (1) document and explain local to global variations in coastal and continental-shelf evolution, incorporating knowledge of coastal and shelf processes and environment with geodynamic, climatic, oceanographic and other data to produce local and regional models, ranging from descriptive to numerical, leading to a better understanding of interactive forces responsible for past, present and future changes to the coasts of the world; and (2) promote specified thematic studies, which are necessary to solve problems of coastal change affecting human occupation of the coastal zone. The volume contains sections on Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf and Lacustrine shorelines, covering both Holocene and Pleistocene deposits, representing a summary of decades of research into coastal and continental-shelf evolution of North America.
Sea-Level Change and Late Quaternary Sediment Accumulation on the Southern Maine Inner Continental Shelf
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Published:January 01, 1992
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CiteCitation
Joseph T. Kelley, Stephen M. Dickson, Daniel F. Belknap, Robert Stuckenrath, Jr., 1992. "Sea-Level Change and Late Quaternary Sediment Accumulation on the Southern Maine Inner Continental Shelf", Quaternary Coasts of the United States: Marine and Lacustrine Systems, Charles H. Fletcher, III, John F. Wehmiller
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Abstract
Sea-level changes have had an important influence on the distribution of late Quaternary inner continental-shelf sediment in the western Gulf of Maine. Previous stratigraphic models of sea-level change in the region were based on terrestrial observations and a large quantity of offshore high-resolution seismic-reflection data. These models, however, were not constrained by core data. Integration of new vibracore data with earlier observations indicates that nearshore regions were (1) probably deglaciated and subjected to glacio-marine conditions around 13.5 ka, (2) subaerially exposed by a fall in sea level sometime after 11 ka, and (3) flooded by a transgressing sea following an inferred lowstand of sea level between 11 and 9 ka. The greatest amount of sediment accumulated on the shelf during the initial transgression, under glacio-marine conditions. Sandy fluvial sediment accumulated in large quantities during the following regression and early Holocene transgression. Sediment influx from eroding bluffs of glacial origin was significant throughout the Holocene transgression, especially in regions lacking a fluvial source.
- absolute age
- Atlantic Ocean
- C-14
- carbon
- Cenozoic
- continental shelf
- cores
- dates
- geophysical methods
- geophysical surveys
- Gulf of Maine
- high-resolution methods
- IGCP
- isotopes
- Maine
- North Atlantic
- Quaternary
- radioactive isotopes
- reflection methods
- sea-level changes
- sedimentation
- seismic methods
- seismic stratigraphy
- surveys
- United States
- upper Quaternary
- southern Maine