The early Holocene sea level rise (EHSLR) was a significant jump in sea level by about during the early Holocene, between about 12,000 and 7,000 years ago, spanning the Eurasian

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

. The rapid rise in sea level and associated climate change, notably the 8.2 ka cooling event (8,200 years ago), and the loss of coastal land favoured by early farmers, may have contributed to the spread of the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incre ...

to Europe in its Neolithic period. During

deglaciation Deglaciation is the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume. Thus, it refers to the retreat of a glacier, an ice shee ...

since the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...

, between about 20,000 to 7,000 years ago (20–7 ka), the sea level rose by a total of about , at times at extremely high rates, due to the rapid melting of the British-Irish Sea,

Fennoscandian __NOTOC__ Fennoscandia (Finnish, Swedish and no, Fennoskandia, nocat=1; russian: Фенноскандия, Fennoskandiya) or the Fennoscandian Peninsula is the geographical peninsula in Europe, which includes the Scandinavian and Kola peninsul ...

, Laurentide, Barents-Kara, Patagonian, Innuitian and parts of the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

ice sheets. At the onset of deglaciation about 19,000 years ago, a brief, at most 500-year long, glacio-eustatic event may have contributed as much as to sea level with an average rate of about /yr. During the rest of the early Holocene, the rate of sea level rise varied from a low of about /yr to as high as /yr during brief periods of accelerated sea level rise. Solid geological evidence, based largely upon analysis of deep cores of coral reefs, exists only for three major periods of accelerated sea level rise, called ''meltwater pulses'', during the last deglaciation. The first, Meltwater pulse 1A, lasted between c. 14.6–14.3 ka and was a rise over about 290 years centered at 14.2 ka. The EHSLR spans Meltwater pulses 1B and 1C, between 12,000 and 7,000 years ago: * Meltwater pulse 1B between c. 11.4–11.1 ka, a rise over about 160 years centered at 11.1 ka, which includes the end of Younger Dryas interval of reduced sea level rise at about /yr; *Meltwater pulse 1C between c. 8.2–7.6 ka, centered at 8.0 ka, a rise of in less than 140 years. Such rapid rates of sea level rising during

meltwater Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found in the ablation zone of glaciers, where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be ...

events clearly implicate major ice-loss events related to ice sheet collapse. The primary source may have been meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet. Other studies suggest a Northern Hemisphere source for the meltwater in the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The EHSLR left some traces in the mythology and oral history of Australian Aborigines.

References

*Torbjörn E. Törnqvist, Marc P. Hijma, "Links between early Holocene ice-sheet decay, sea-level rise and abrupt climate change", ''Nature Geoscience'' vol. 5 (2012), 601–606. *T. M. Cronin P. R. Vogt D. A. Willard R. Thunell J. Halka M. Berke J. Pohlman, "Rapid sea level rise and ice sheet response to 8,200‐year climate event", ''Geophysical Research Letters'' vol. 34, issue 20 (October 2007), . *Kazuaki Hori Yoshiki Saito, "An early Holocene sea‐level jump and delta initiation", ''Geophysical Research Letters'' vol. 34, issue 18 (September 2007), . *Shi-Yong Yu, Y.-X. Li and T.E. Törnqvist
"Tempo of global deglaciation during the early Holocene: A sea level perspective"
''PAGES News'' vol. 17, no. 2 (June 2009), {{doi, 10.1038/NGEO470. Sea level Holocene Last Glacial Period Mesolithic Neolithic

See also

References