A two-decade-long collection of about 1,000 ancient sediment samples off Britain, north America, Greenland and the Seychelles formed the basis of the research, led by the Australian National University and published in PNAS. The 35,000-year span of the study was chosen as this comprises an interglacial period. Researchers could pick submerged sediments that may include tree roots, suggesting a previously lower sea level, or mollusks, which can be measured against the fossil record to determine the previous sea level. Ice started melting about 16,000 years ago, with this melting ending about 8,000 years ago. A slowdown in sea level changes didn’t occur until 6,000 years ago, however.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 20:58:10 +0000
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