Our very own Holocene

Please do except my apologies for the delay in publishing this post.............

Ok, today's post is about sea level rise during the early Holocene.

Why is this important? Well, you will have to wait and see..............

Outline................

Holocene is the period where planet earth started to get warm after the ice age. This led the sea levels to rise to 5 - 6 m over a few hundred years following 7600 cal yr B.P. Examinations carried out during the Holocene show that melt water flow to the oceans was not constant, indicating rising sea levels occurred on intervals during the Holocene. (Bird et al.,2010).

In the earlier paragraph I mentioned about examinations carried out on the Holocene. Well, we all know that we were not around to have known or to have collected data from.

This is the secret........

Studies on the Holocene are carried out by analysing sediment cores collected from peat bogs and lakes. The sediment core is collected in a tube by inserting into the deep soil. Here is a picture of an extraction of a sediment core from a lake. (Soelen et al.,2010).

The sediment core is then examined for biomarkers, pollen and diatoms as they are indicators of the environmental conditions in a particular era in a region. The proxies analysed during the early Holocene indicates that many regions were flooded. It also shows of a high content in marine species and a limited circulation of freshwater. This is a clear indication of the earth being flooded in saline water during the early Holocene (Soelen et al.,2010).

Rising sea levels were triggered by the melt water from the decaying glaziers. Proxy records also show that during this period atmospheric temperatures rose to pre-industrial levels. (Smith et al.,2011).

Importance...........

Study of the Holocene sea level rise has enabled scientists to predict how coastal areas will be affected by the modern day sea level rise.

Let’s watch a short video relating to what you have been reading....

On my next post, I am planning to look at the Holocene sea level rise leading to the shifting of coastal lines and human movement...........