Relative Sea-Level Change

The change of shorelines depends on the variation of the relative sea level. 

The relative sea-level change (RSL) signal can be separated into two main components  

FIGURE 14.3 Map of vertical crustal movements relative to the sea level (mm/year). The map is a compilation of data from Ekman (1996) and gauge measurements in the southern Baltic Sea (after Rosentau et al., 2007). 

Baltic Sea have been operated for more than 200 years (Dietrich and Liebsch, 2000), and 

According to Equation 14.1, the eustatic sea-level changes as well as the vertical crustal movements. The eustatic change is regarded constant over the whole area. Hupfer et al. (2003) propose a local eustatic rise of l.Omm/year for the last century within the western Baltic Sea. The vertical crustal movements show remarkable differences over the entire Baltic Sea area (Fig. 14.3), reflecting here the glacioisostatic adjustment (GIA). The center of uplift is in the Bothnian Bay, with a rate of about 9 mm/year. The coast of the southern Baltic Sea shows subsidence reflecting compensation currents in the upper mantle. 

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Relative sea level changes affect many shallow marine and coastal depositional environments. 

Belknap, D.F., and Kraft, J.C. (1977) Holocene relative sea-level changes and coastal stratigraphic units on the northwest flank of the Baltimore Canyon trough geosyncline. J. Sed. Petrol. 47, 610-629. 

Hunter, L. E., and Smith, G. W. (2001). Morainal banks and the deglaciation of coastal Maine. In Deglacial History and Relative Sea-level Changes, Northern New England and Adjacent Canada (T. K. Weddle and M. J. Retelle, eds.), Geological Society America Special Paper 351, 151-170. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO. 

Corner, G. D., Yevzerov, V. Y, Kolka, V. V., Mpller, J. J., 1999. Isolation basin stratigraphy and Holocene relative sea-level change at the Norwegian-Russian border north of Nikel, northwest Russia. Boreas, 28, 146-166. 

Donner, J. J., Eronen, M., lunger, H., 1977. The dating of the Holocene relative sea level changes in Finnmark, North Norway. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, 31, 103-128. 

Rosentau, A., Meyer, M., Harff, J., Dietrich, R., Richter, A., 2007. Relative sea level change in the Baltic Sea since the Littorina Transgression. Zeitschr. f. Geol. Wiss. 35, 1(2), 3-16. 

Funnell, B.M. Pearson, I. (1989) Holocene sedimentation on the North Norfolk barrier coast in relation to relative sea-level change. J. Quat. Sci. 4, 25-36. 

Norgaard-Pedersen, N., Austin, W. E. N., Howe, J. A. Shimmield, T. 2006. The Holocene record of Loch Etive, western Scotland influence of catchment and relative sea level changes. Marine Geology, 228, 55—71. 

Vink, A., Steifen, H., Reinhardt, L., Kaufman, G. (2007). Holocene relative sea-level change, isostatic subsidence and the radial viscosity structure of the mantle of northwest Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the southern North Sea). Quaternary Science Reviews, 26(25-28), 3249-3275. 

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