Inherited landscapes and sea level change

Abstract

Volume and shape combine to find a level How can we understand the geological record of sea level change? Sea level varies on time scales from decades to millions of years. These changes have local, regional, and global components and are caused by a wide variety of earth processes. Cloetingh and Haq review how the views of stratigraphers (who interpret the record of marine sediments) and geodynamicists (who consider changes in the shape of Earth caused by lithospheric and mantle processes) have begun to complement each other and are moving toward a more coherent interpretation of the history of sea level. They focus on cyclic sea-level changes 0.5 to 3.0 million years in duration that occurred in the Cretaceous period, approximately 145 to 65 million years ago. Science , this issue 10.1126/science.1258375