Development of spit–lagoon complexes in response to Little Ice Age rapid sea-level changes in the central Guilan coast, South Caspian Sea, Iran

Geomorphology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 187 ◽  
pp. 11-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Naderi Beni ◽  
H. Lahijani ◽  
R. Moussavi Harami ◽  
S.A.G. Leroy ◽  
M. Shah-Hosseini ◽  
...  
2014 ◽  
pp. 145-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdolmajid Naderi Beni ◽  
Hamid Lahijani ◽  
Morsen Pourkerman ◽  
Rahman Jokar ◽  
Muna Hosseindoust ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 302 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 415-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A.G. Leroy ◽  
H.A.K. Lahijani ◽  
M. Djamali ◽  
A. Naqinezhad ◽  
M.V. Moghadam ◽  
...  

Polar Record ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naja Mikkelsen ◽  
Antoon Kuijpers ◽  
Jette Arneborg

ABSTRACTNorse immigrants from Europe settled in southern Greenland in around AD 985 and managed to create a farming community during the Medieval Warm Period. The Norse vanished after approximately 500 years of existence in Greenland leaving no documentary evidence concerning why their culture foundered. The flooding of fertile grassland caused by late Holocene sea-level changes may be one of the factors that affected the Norse community. Holocene sea-level changes in Greenland are closely connected with the isostatic response of the Earth's crust to the behaviour of the Greenlandic ice sheet. An early Holocene regressive phase in south and west Greenland was reversed during the middle Holocene, and evidence is found for transgression and drowning of early-middle Holocene coast lines. This drowning started between 8 and 7ka BP in southern Greenland and continued during the Norse era to the present. An average late Holocene sea level rise in the order of 2–3 m/1000 years may be one of the factors that negatively affected the life of the Norse Greenlanders, and combined with other both socio-economic and environmental problems, such as increasing wind and sea ice expansion at the transition to the Little Ice Age, may eventually have led to the end of the Norse culture in Greenland.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1645-1665 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Naderi Beni ◽  
H. Lahijani ◽  
R. Mousavi Harami ◽  
K. Arpe ◽  
S. A. G. Leroy ◽  
...  

Abstract. Historical literature may constitute a valuable source of information to reconstruct sea-level changes. Here, historical documents and geological records have been combined to reconstruct Caspian sea-level (CSL) changes during the last millennium. In addition to a comprehensive literature review, new data from two short sediment cores were obtained from the south-eastern Caspian coast to identify coastal change driven by water-level changes and to compare the results with other geological and historical findings. The overall results indicate a high-stand during the Little Ice Age, up to −21 m (and extra rises due to manmade river avulsion), with a −28 m low-stand during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, while presently the CSL stands at −26.5 m. A comparison of the CSL curve with other lake systems and proxy records suggests that the main sea-level oscillations are essentially paced by solar irradiance. Although the major controller of the long-term CSL changes is driven by climatological factors, the seismicity of the basin creates local changes in base level. These local base-level changes should be considered in any CSL reconstruction.


Author(s):  
Maria da Assunção Araújo

Sea level is a very changeable surface. Furthermore, the land may also be moving, in a slower rate,generating relative sea level changes. The causes of relative sea level changes are variable, but the onesthat cause more intense variations are related to climate.During Little Ice Age (LIA) Northern Hemisphere's summer temperatures fell significantly below theAD 1961–1990 range. This climate situation was responsible for a greater discharge of rivers, whichcould lead to a greater transportation of sediments to the coastline. During these cold periods, sea levelwas lower than in present time. All this could imply a coastline progradation, with the successiveabandon of older beach ridges, reinforcing the sandy supply for dune building. The coastal situationshould be, in some sense, the opposite of the situations that we face today.In present warm period, rivers carry less sediment than during LIA. Moreover, the recent sea level risecontributes to a coastal migration inlands and the erosion of previous beaches and dunes.Our investigation on ancient marine levels and Holocene cemented dunes suggests that the area nearEsmoriz (20 km south of Porto, NW Portuguese coast) is probably subsiding. This possible subsidence,together with recent sea level rise, induced by the end of LIA, could explain the severe coastal erosionthat is taking place at Espinho area (15 km south of Porto) since the middle of the XIX century.This example shows clearly the complexity of relative sea-level changes. Because of this complexity,sea level curves are not similar worldwide, as they depend on the interference of multiple time-scalesphenomena.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1397-1448
Author(s):  
A. Naderi Beni ◽  
H. Lahijani ◽  
R. Mousavi Harami ◽  
K. Arpe ◽  
S. A. G. Leroy ◽  
...  

Abstract. Historical literature may constitute a valuable source of information to reconstruct sea level changes. Here, historical documents and geological records have been combined to reconstruct Caspian sea-level (CSL) changes during the last millennium. In addition to a literature survey, new data from two short sediment cores were obtained from the south-eastern Caspian coast to identify coastal change driven by water-level changes. Two articulated bivalve shells from the marine facies were radiocarbon dated and calibrated to establish a chronology and to compare them with historical findings. The overall results indicate a high-stand during the Little Ice Age, up to −19 m, with a −28 m low-stand during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, while presently the CSL stands at −26.5 m. A comparison of the CSL curve with other lake systems and proxy records suggests that the main sea-level oscillations are essentially paced by solar irradiance. Although the major controller of the long-term CSL changes is driven by climatological factors, the seismicity of the basin could create locally changes in base level. These local base-level changes should be considered in any CSL reconstruction.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. BALDINA ◽  
J. DE LEEUW ◽  
A.K. GORBUNOV ◽  
I.A. LABUTINA ◽  
A.F. ZHIVOGLIAD ◽  
...  

During the twentieth century the level of the Caspian Sea dropped from -26 m (1930) to -29 m (1977) below global sea level and subsequently rose again to -26.66 m in 1996. We aimed to describe responses of the vegetation in the lower Volga Delta to these substantial sea-level changes using an analysis of historic vegetation maps produced by aerial photography and satellite imagery.The sea level drop in the earlier part of the century was followed by rapid progression of the vegetation. The subsequent rapid sea-level rise in the 1980s did however not result in similarly rapid regression of the vegetation. This partial irreversibility of the vegetation response to sea-level change is explained by the wide flooding tolerance of the major emergent species, namely Phragmites australis. Floating vegetation increased in extent, most likely due to the increased availability of more favourable conditions, particularly for Nelumbo nucifera, a tropical plant reaching its northernmost distribution in the Volga Delta. This species increased in distribution from 3.5 ha in the 1930s throughout the entire Volga Delta to several thousands of hectares in the Astrakhanskiy Biosphere Reserve alone in the 1980s. The reported sea-level changes swept the ecosystems in the Astrakhanskiy Biosphere Reserve back and forth within the Reserve boundaries. At longer time scales, ten-fold greater sea-level change has been reported. The ecosystems for which the Reserve is renowned might be pushed completely out of the Reserve under these conditions. We therefore question whether the current Reserve will be sufficiently large to guarantee conservation of the biota in the lower Volga Delta at longer time scales.


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