This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. Many coasts feature sequences of Quaternary and Neogene shorelines that are shaped by a combination of sealevel oscillations and tectonics. We compiled a global synthesis of sea-level changes for the following highstands: MIS 1, MIS 3, MIS 5e and MIS 11. Also, we date the apparent onset of sequences of paleoshorelines either from published data or tentatively extrapolating an age for the uppermost, purported oldest shoreline in each sequence. Including the most documented MIS 5e benchmark, we identify 926 sequences out of which 185 also feature Holocene shorelines. Six areas are identified where elevations of the MIS 3 shorelines are known, and 31 feature elevation data for MIS 11 shorelines. Genetic relationships to regional geodynamics are further explored based on the elevations of the MIS 5e benchmark. Mean apparent uplift rates range from 0.01 ± 0.01 mm/yr (hotspots) to 1.47 ± 0.08 mm/yr (continental collision). Passive margins appear as ubiquitously uplifting, while tectonic segmentation is more important on active margins. From the literature and our extrapolations, we infer ages for the onset of formation for~180 coastal sequences. Sea level fingerprinting on coastal sequences started at least during mid Miocene and locally as early as Eocene. Whether due to the changes in the bulk volume of seawater or to the temporal variations in the shape of ocean basins, estimates of eustasy fail to explain the magnitude of the apparent sea level drop. Thus, vertical ground motion is invoked, and we interpret the longlasting development of those paleoshore sequences as the imprint of glacial cycles on globally uplifted margins in response to continental compression. The geomorphological expression of the sequences matches the amplitude and frequency of glacial cyclicity. From middle Pleistocene to present-day, moderately fast (100,000 yrs) oscillating sea levels favor the development of well identified strandlines that are distinct from one another. Pliocene and Lower Pleistocene strandlines associated with faster cyclicity (40,000 yrs) are more compact and easily merge into rasas, whereas older Cenozoic low-frequency eustatic changes generally led to widespread flat-lying coastal plains.

Many islands of the eastern Indonesian Archipelago exhibit Late Cenozoic sequences of coral reef terraces. In SE Sulawesi, on the Tukang Besi and Buton archipelagos, we identified 23 islands bearing such sequences. Remote sensing imagery and field mapping combined to U/Th and 14 C dating enable to establish a chronologic framework of the reef terrace sequences from Wangi-Wangi, Buton as well as on the neighbouring, smaller islands of Ular, Siumpu and Kadatua. We identified the terraces from the last interglacial maximum (MIS 5e) at elevations lower than 20 m except on W Kadatua where it is raised at 34 ± 5 m. Such elevations yield low to moderate Upper Pleistocene uplift rates (<0.3 mm yr À1). On SE Buton Island, a sequence culminates at 650 m and includes at least 40 undated strandlines. Next to this exceptional sequence, on the Sampolawa Peninsula, 18 strandlines culminate at 430 m. Dated samples at the base of this sequence (<40 m) yield mean Middle Pleistocene uplift rates of 0.14 ± 0.09 mm yr À1. Extrapolation of these uplift rates compared to the geological setting suggests that the sequences of the Sampolawa Peninsula provide a record of sea-level high-stands for the last 3.8 ± 0.6 Ma. The sequences on SE Buton Island therefore constitute the best preserved long-lasting geomorphic record of Plio-Quaternary sea-level stands worldwide.