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Magnitudes of sea-level lowstands of the past 500,000 years

Nature volume 394, pages 162–165 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Existing techniques for estimating natural fluctuations of sea level and global ice-volume from the recent geological past exploit fossil coral-reef terraces or oxygen-isotope records from benthic foraminifera. Fossil reefs reveal the magnitude of sea-level peaks (highstands) of the past million years, but fail to produce significant values for minima (lowstands) before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) about 20,000 years ago, a time at which sea level was about 120 m lower than it is today1,2,3,4. The isotope method provides a continuous sea-level record for the past 140,000 years (ref. 5) (calibrated with fossil-reef data6), but the realistic uncertainty in the sea-level estimates is around ±20 m. Here we present improved lowstand estimates—extending the record back to 500,000 years before present—using an independent method based on combining evidence of extreme high-salinity conditions in the glacial Red Sea with a simple hydraulic control model of water flow through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandab, which links the Red Sea to the open ocean. We find that the world can glaciate more intensely than during the LGM by up to an additional 20-m lowering of global sea-level. Such a 20-m difference is equivalent to a change in global ice-volume of the order of today's Greenland and West Antarctic ice-sheets.

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Figure 1: Results for core MD921017, Red Sea (19° 23′ 24″ N, 38° 40′ 84″ E, water depth 570 m).
Figure 2: Trends through interglacial stages.
Figure 3: Sensitivity of confidence interval.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. Vonhof, M. Dignan and P. Martinez for assistance with stable-isotope and TOC analyses; J. W. Zachariasse for cooperation within the context of our joint studies of the NW Indian Ocean; NERC for support to M.F., and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris for support to E.J.R. during the planning and sampling phase of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oceanography, Southampton University, Southampton Oceanography Centre, SO14 3ZH, Southampton, UK

    E. J. Rohling & M. Fenton

  2. Département de Géologie et Océanographie, Université de Bordeaux I, CNRS URA 197, Avenue des Facultés, 33405, Talence Cedex, France

    F. J. Jorissen & P. Bertrand

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Free University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    G. Ganssen

  4. Laboratoire de Géologie, National Museum for Natural History, CNRS URA 723, 43 Rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

    J. P. Caulet

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  1. E. J. Rohling
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Correspondence to E. J. Rohling.

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Rohling, E., Fenton, M., Jorissen, F. et al. Magnitudes of sea-level lowstands of the past 500,000 years. Nature 394, 162–165 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/28134

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