PUBLICATIONS Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems RESEARCH ARTICLE Constraining mid to late Holocene relative sea level change in 10.1002/2014GC005272 the southern equatorial Pacific Ocean relative to the Society Key Points: Islands, French Polynesia The Society Islands indicate a highstand at 5.4 to 2ka Rashid Rashid1, Anton Eisenhauer1, Paolo Stocchi2, Volker Liebetrau1, Jan Fietzke1, Sea level has dropped by 1.8 m Andres Ruggeberg€ 3, and Wolf-Christian Dullo1 since the Holocene maximum For microatolls geoid deformation 1GEOMAR, Helmholtz-Zentrum fur€ Ozeanforschung Kiel, Kiel, Germany, 2NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea and subsidence rate should be 3 considered Research, Texel, Netherlands, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland Correspondence to: Abstract Precisely quantifying the current climate-related sea level change requires accurate knowledge R. Rashid,
[email protected] of long-term geological processes known as Glacial Isostatic Adjustments (GIA). Although the major postgla- cial melting phase is likely to have ended 6–4 ka BP (before present), GIA is still significantly affecting the Citation: present-day vertical position of the mean sea surface and the sea bottom. Here we present empirical rsl (rel- Rashid, R., A. Eisenhauer, P. Stocchi, V. ative sea level) data based on U/Th dated fossil corals from reef platforms of the Society Islands, French Pol- Liebetrau, J. Fietzke, A. Ruggeberg,€ and ynesia, together with the corresponding GIA-modeling. Fossil coral data constrain the timing and amplitude W-C. Dullo (2014), Constraining mid to late Holocene relative sea level change of rsl variations after the Holocene sea level maximum (HSLM). Upon correction for isostatic island subsi- in the southern equatorial Pacific dence, we find that local rsl was at least 1.5 6 0.4 m higher than present at 5.4 ka.