by David Middleton, June 6 , 2019 in WUWT
What is a highstand?
A highstand is one phase of the sea level cycle (AAPG Wiki)
- Rising
- Highstand
- Falling
- Lowstand
The highstand is the maximum sea level achieved during the cycle.
The Holocene Epoch
The Holocene Epoch was recently formally subdivided into three stages:
- Greenlandian Stage = Lower or Early-Holocene. 11.70 ka to 8.33 ka
- Northgrippian Stage = Middle or Mid-Holocene. 8.33 ka to 4.25 ka
- Meghalayan Stage = Upper or Late-Holocene. 4.25 ka to present
The abbreviation “ka” refers to thousands of years ago. Lower, Middle and Upper are generally used when referring to rock-time units. Early, Mid and Late are generally used when referring to time units (Haile, 1987). Prior to the formal subdivision, Lower/Early, Middle/Mid and Upper/Late were commonly used; however there was no formal nomenclature. The fake word, “Anthropocene” is not used by real geologists.
There is also an informal climatological subdivision of the Holocene:
- Preboreal 10 ka–9
- Boreal 9 ka–8 ka
- Atlantic 8 ka–5 ka
- Subboreal 5 ka–2.5 ka
- Subatlantic 2.5 ka–present
Source: Wikipedia
Why would there have been a Mid- to Late-Holocene highstand?
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Figure 1. Holocene sea level curves from Moore & Curray, 1974.
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