Approximately 15,000 years ago the world was near the last peak of the Wisconsin-Würm glaciation. At that time sea level was approximately 100 meters lower than it is now. For the previous 80,000 years terrestrial erosional and depositional processes had been occurring along the areas of the present continents, continental shelves, and continental margins. Accordingly land forms derived by the climatic, erosional, depositional aspects of that last great Ice Age made an indelible impression upon the topography of the continents and particularly of the coastal zones.
With the waning of the late Wisconsin ice sheets to their present position, sea level, at first rapidly and then at slower rates, rose to its present position. A great deal of argument continues regarding the nature of this rise in sea level and transgression of the marine relative to the land. The nature of the sea level change is still in doubt. We do know that a relatively rapid sea-level rise and transgression of the...
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References
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Kraft, J.C. (1982). Archaeology, geological considerations . In: Beaches and Coastal Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30843-1_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30843-1_20
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