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Imprints of post-glacial sea-level changes in the Visakhapatnam Bay (VB) basin: first documentation from multibeam bathymetry data

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Abstract

The stable continental margins, such as the Eastern continental margin of India, are an important archive of the past climates, sedimentation, and glacio-eustatic sea-level oscillations. This study uses high-resolution bathymetry data to report palaeoshorelines in the Visakhapatnam Bay basin at 90 m and 105 m water depths. The trend of the shorelines is continuous and very distinct and provides a valuable base map for the systematic collection of sediment samples to confirm the periods of sea-level rise, post the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in the Indian continental margin (LGM spans ca. 29–19 ka BP interval). The newly collected single-beam and multibeam echosounder data indicate that the linear trending features running parallel to the coast are palaeoshorelines representing different phases of the sea-level transgression. We believe that the palaeoshorelines at 90 m and 105 m are a result of a sluggish post-glacial sea-level transgression during the late Pleistocene.

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Data availability

Datasets generated during the current study are confidential and is archived at the Marine Geoscientific database being managed by NCPOR. The corresponding author can be contacted for the availability of the dataset.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Director, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa for the encouragement and support to carry out this work. We sincerely thank the shipboard scientific party, officers and crew members of ORV Sagar Manjusha (NIOT) for their assistance in collecting the data. We thank Mr. Abhishek Tyagi (Scientist, NCPOR), Dr. K.A. Kamesh Raju (Scientist, NCPOR) and Dr. V. Sunil (Scientist, NCPOR) for their valuable inputs. We would like to thank Prof. Dr. Maria-Angela Bassetti and the two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their insightful and constructive suggestions and comments. This is NCPOR contribution number J-6/2023-24.

Funding

The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India provided the financial support to carry out the work through the ‘Geoscientific Studies of Exclusive Economic Zone of India’ Programme under grant no. MoES/EFC/28/2018-PC-II.

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  1. National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Headland Sada, Vasco da Gama, Goa, 403804, India

    S. Susanth, Tyson Sebastian, B. Mohammed Shafeeq & P. John Kurian

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Contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: Study conception and design: S.S, M.S and J.K; Data processing: S.S and M.S; Analysis and interpretation of results: S.S and T.S; Draft manuscript preparation: S.S; Review and editing: S.S, T.S and J.K. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to P. John Kurian.

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Susanth, S., Sebastian, T., Shafeeq, B.M. et al. Imprints of post-glacial sea-level changes in the Visakhapatnam Bay (VB) basin: first documentation from multibeam bathymetry data. Geo-Mar Lett 43, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-023-00749-y

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