Holocene sea-level changes in the Malay-Thai Peninsula, a tectonically stable environment

Abstract

The Malay-Thai Peninsula is part of tectonically stable Sundaland, which is the southeast corner of the Eurasian Plate. The Holocene sea-level changes in the region are deduced from a total of 200 dated shoreline indicators. Sea level reached a peak of about 5 m and about 4 m some 5,000 years and 6,000 years ago in Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. This mid-Holocene transgression was followed by sea-level decrease that took place either gradually, or step-wise with thousand-year periods of stillstand, or more likely in a series of short to medium long periods of regressions and smaller transgressions. During one of the regressions, Late Holocene sea level probably dropped below current datum.Shoreline indicators of pre Mid-Holocene age located between the latitudes of the Langkawi Islands and Phang Nga are anomalously high. These high elevations suggest geoidal relief of up to 40 metres between the northern and southern parts of Strait Malacca.

Hydrocarbon basins in SE Asia: understanding why they are there

“…Sundaland extends north into Indochina, much of it was terrestrial for most of the Cenozoic and it formed an exposed landmass during the Pleistocene. Most of the shelf is flat, extremely shallow, with water depths considerably less than 200 m. Seismicity (Cardwell & Isacks 1978;Engdahl et al 1998) and GPS measurements (Rangin et al 1999;Michel et al 2001;Bock et al 2003 Geyh et al 1979;Tjia 1992;Hanebuth et al 2000) and sea-level data from the region have been used in construction of global eustatic sea-level curves (e.g. Fleming et al 1998;Bird et al 2007), despite evidence of very young faulting and vertical movements (e.g.…”

A record of Late Pleistocene and Holocene carbon accumulation and climate change from an equatorial peat bog (Kalimantan, Indonesia): implications for past, present and future carbon dynamics

“…At the time of peat initiation in Central Kalimantan, the coring site would have been at an elevation of more than 100 m asl, as sea levels were approaching an LGM low-stand that was 120 m lower than present (Biswas, 1973;Verstappen, 1980;Tjia, 1992). At its climax, this drop in sea levels in the South China Sea (SCS) exposed 3 000 000 km 2 of low-lying land on the Sunda Shelf (Verstappen, 1975) that connected the present-day island of Borneo to Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Java, forming a single landmass called Sundaland.…”

Seismic Facies of Pleistocene–Holocene Channel-fill Deposits in Bawean Island and Adjacent Waters, Southeast Java Sea

“…The Northern Sunda River System is also known as the Great Sunda River System or Molengraaff River System. The river, arising between Belitung Island and Borneo, flew in a northeasterly direction, where it collected waters from some rivers in Central Sumatra and the rivers in Western and Northern Borneo, before flowing into the South China Sea between the North and South Natuna Islands (Tjia, 1992;Hanebuth et al, 2000). Finally the Eastern Sunda River System empties Northern Java and Southern Borneo (Figure 1), flowing in an easterly direction between Borneo and Java into the Java Sea (Voris, 2000;Sathiamurthy and Voris, 2006).…”

“…The southeast Java Sea forms the submerged part of the Sunda Shelf and lies on a relatively stable continental shelf (Susilohadi and Soeprapto, 2015). Furthermore, Tjia (1992) also mentioned that the Sunda Shelf has been largely tectonically stable since early Tertiary. Physiographically, the Sunda Shelf occupied by a numbers of islands, which were formerly high parts on the Sunda peneplain.…”