Oxygen isotopes, ice volume and sea level

doi:10.1016/0277-3791(87)90003-5

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 6, Issues 3–4, 1987, Pages 183-190

https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-3791(87)90003-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

A careful comparison is made between the most detailed records of sea level over the last glacial cycle, and two high-quality oxygen isotope records. One is a high-resolution benthonic record that contains superb detail but proves to record temperature change as well as ice volume; the other is a planktonic record from the west equatorial Pacific where the temperature effect may be minimal but where high resolution is not available. A combined record is generated which may be a better approximation to ice volume than was previously available.

This approach cannot yet be applied to the whole Pleistocene. However, comparison of glacial extremes suggests that glacial extremes of stages 12 and 16 significantly exceeded the last glacial maximum as regards ice volume and hence as regards sea level lowering. Interglacial stages 7, 13, 15, 17 and 19 did not attain Holocene oxygen isotope values; possibly the sea did not reach its present level. It is unlikely that sea level was glacio-eustatically higher than present by more than a few metres during any interglacial of the past 2.5 million years.

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Oxygen isotopes, ice volume and sea level

Abstract

Quaternary Research

Quaternary Research

Quaternary Research

Quaternary Research

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Quaternary Research

Oxygen isotopes and sea level

Nature

Isotope-plankton comparisons in a Late Quaternary core with a stable temperature history

Geology

Pleistocene sea levels from raised coral reefs of Haiti

Science

Pleistocene temperatures

Journal of Geology

Globally synchronous extinction of the radiolarian Stylatractus Universus

Geology