[Seminar] Quaternary Sea Level Changes – A Complex Story

The second departmental seminar will be given by Prof. Svante Björck from Lund University this Friday from 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm in Room 333. Prof. Svante will present a talk titled “Quaternary Sea Level Changes – A Complex Story“. See you all on Friday.

Abstract

The presentation will focus on the processes that determine sea level changes in a world with waxing and waning continental ice sheets, a typical feature for the Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years). Apart from storing huge amounts of water on land, and thereby lowering sea levels, the loading and unloading of ice sheets have a great impact on the elastic lithosphere and the rheology of Earth´s mantle. While the former has a direct effect in glaciated regions, the latter influences the horizontal flow of the highly viscous asthenosphere (upper mantle). In addition, the glacial-interglacial sea level changes cause vertical motions of the ocean bottoms, the glacio-hydro isostatic effect. This means that the build-up and melting of the North American and Eurasian ice sheets have had a global impact, both in terms of eustatic and isostatic processes. I will give examples on how these processes influence different parts of the world: glaciated regions; regions situated peripherally to the ice sheets; and regions far away from any glaciation. I will also present different ways of establishing sea level changes, during glacial, deglacial and interglacial conditions. Finally I will show some examples of ongoing sea level changes, of which some are not connected to the cryosphere (Earth´s ice covered surfaces).