Flank Margin Caves and the Position of Mid- to Late Pleistocene Sea Level in the Bahamas

Mylroie, John E.; Lace, Michael J.; Albury, Nancy A.; Mylroie, Joan R.

doi:10.2112/jcoastres-d-18-00174.1

Cited by 16 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The Bahamian islands are very young geologically ( 7 ), so we might expect lower levels of endemism than on the much older islands of the Greater Antilles. While this generally may be the case, the Bahamian fossil record also has disclosed that some species previously considered to be endemic to Cuba (or elsewhere in the Greater Antilles) once had distributions that included Bahamian islands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the sea levels during MIS 5a and MIS 11 reached as high as the latest sources estimate (e.g., ref. 7 ), the Bahamian Archipelago would have been nearly completely submerged, with far fewer, smaller, and more isolated islands than even today. Therefore, much if not most of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene terrestrial flora and fauna has colonized the island group by overwater dispersal since MIS 5a.…”

Section: Physical Settings Of the Glacial And Interglacial Bahamasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas

Steadman

Franklin

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Comparing distributional information derived from fossils with the modern distribution of species, we summarize the changing bird communities of the Bahamian Archipelago across deep ecological time. While our entire dataset consists of 7,600+ identified fossils from 32 sites on 15 islands (recording 137 species of resident and migratory birds), we focus on the landbirds from four islands with the best fossil records, three from the Late Pleistocene (∼25 to 10 ka [1,000 y ago]) and one from the Holocene (∼10 to 0 ka). The Late Pleistocene sites feature 51 resident species that have lost one or more Bahamian populations; 29 of these species do not occur in any of the younger Holocene sites (or in the Bahamas today). Of these 29 species, 17 have their closest affinities to species now or formerly living in Cuba and/or North America. A set of 27 species of landbirds, most of them extant somewhere today, was more widespread in the Bahamas in the prehistoric Holocene (∼10 to 0.5 ka) than they are today; 16 of these 27 species were recorded as Pleistocene fossils as well. No single site adequately captures the entire landbird fauna of the combined focal islands. Information from all sites is required to assess changes in Bahamian biodiversity (including endemism) since the Late Pleistocene. The Bahamian islands are smaller, flatter, lower, and more biotically depauperate than the Greater Antilles, resulting in more vulnerable bird communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Physical Settings Of the Glacial And Interglacial Bahamasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas

Steadman

Franklin

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Perhaps at the same time as notches are mentioned (e.g. papers by Mylroie et al, 2020;Carew and Mylroie, 1990;Mylroie and Carew, 1995).…”

Section: Interactive Commentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Dumitru et al LIG speleothems and sea levels

Richards¹

2021

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“…More in-depth studies have been undertaken to investigate the POS precipitation conditions and the relationships between surface conditions (temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, tidal level of the sea) and the microenvironment of coastal caves (temperature, pCO 2 , and water level; Boop et al, 2014). The distinction between POS and shelfstones (flat deposits attached to cave walls or on partly immersed speleothems that grow inwards from the edge of the pool/speleothem) is clearly described in Onac et al (2012).…”

Section: Phreatic Overgrowths On Speleothemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relevant sea-level markers such as flank margin caves (Mylroie et al, 2020), tidal notches (Bini et al, 2014), phreatic overgrowths on speleothems, and vadose submerged speleothems (Richards et al, 1994;Onac et al, 2012) are unique to coastal karst environments (Van Hengstum et al, 2015). Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in cave deposits that allow for sea-level reconstructions, which include phreatic overgrowths on speleothems (POSs; indicative of the position of sea-level stillstands) and submerged vadose speleothems (SVSs; providing maximum elevations of sea-level position).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Last interglacial sea-level history from speleothems: a global standardized database

Dumitru

Polyak

Asmerom

et al. 2021

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Speleothems (secondary cave carbonate precipitates) are archives of valuable information for reconstructing past sea levels as they are generally protected from weathering and erosion by their location and can be dated with U-series methods. Two main categories of speleothems are recognized as sea-level indicators: phreatic overgrowth on speleothems (POSs) and submerged vadose speleothems (SVSs). POSs have the great advantage that they precipitate on preexisting supports (vadose speleothems or cave walls) at a brackish water level equivalent to sea level when air-filled chambers of coastal caves are flooded by rising sea. SVSs are also useful, but sea level is inferred indirectly as periods of growth provide constraints on maximum sea-level positions, whereas growth hiatuses, sometimes difficult to observe, may indicate times when cave passages are submerged by sea highstands; hence they record minimum sea-level elevations. Here we describe a compilation that summarizes the current knowledge of the complete last interglacial (in its broadest sense from ∼ 140 to 70 ka, also known as marine isotope stage (MIS) 5) sea level captured by speleothems. We used the framework of the World Atlas of Last Interglacial Shorelines (WALIS), a comprehensive sea-level database, to provide a standardized format in order to facilitate scientific research on MIS 5 sea level. The discussion is focused on MIS 5e, but records that capture MIS 5d, 5c, 5b, and 5a are also included. We present the data from 71 speleothems (36 sea-level index points and 37 limiting points) in coastal caves located in 10 different locations, and we include the spatial coverage, the samples used, and their accuracy as indicators of sea level, U and Th isotopes used to generate the chronologies, and their scientific relevance to understand past sea-level changes. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the usefulness of these indicators not only to render information regarding the eustatic sea level, but also for their contribution to refine the glacial isostatic adjustment models and to constrain regional tectonic uplift rates. The standardized sea-level database presented here is the first of its kind derived from speleothems and contains all the information needed to assess paleo relative sea levels and the chronological constraints associated with them. The database is available open-access at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4313860 (Dumitru et al., 2020). We refer the readers to the official documentation of the WALIS database at https://walis-help.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ (last access: 20 January 2021), where the meaning of each field is explained in detail.

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Flank Margin Caves and the Position of Mid- to Late Pleistocene Sea Level in the Bahamas

Cited by 16 publications

References 35 publications

Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas

Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas

Review: Dumitru et al LIG speleothems and sea levels

Last interglacial sea-level history from speleothems: a global standardized database

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