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POSTER ABSTRACT BOOK POSTER SESSION Session 1: Paleo sea level data and GIA modelling Paper ID 112 Poster Board N°5 The "Nora and the Sea" Project: The Sunken and the Flooding City Bonetto, Jacopo (1); Carraro, Filippo (1); Metelli, Maria Chiara (1); Sanna, Ignazio (2) 1: Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy; 2: Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Cagliari e Oristano E-Mail: [email protected] The ancient city of Nora (Sardinia, Italy) has always had a special connection with its surrounding sea. Time was when the sea used to be a source of cultural and economic richness, carried by the ships of Phoenician merchants or supplied by African and Roman markets. Then pirates came from the sea, marking the end of a millennial history. Nowadays, the threat to this unearthed ancient city, one of the main archaeological sites of Sardinia, comes from the sea itself, mainly due to strong seasonal storms and the global rise of the sea level. Such an urgency has been grasped by the University of Padova, which set up a project aimed at studying and preserving the coastal and submerged structures of the site, by combining archaeological research and future impact forecasts. Topographical and functional connections between the ancient settlement and its shore have been firstly inspected, by surveying and recording all sunken or flooding structures and by building the paleo-DTM of the peninsula, that has never been affected by subsidence. A new digital terrain model has been achieved by joining past cartography with a detailed bathymetry of the seabed, performed with an echosounder and thickened along the coast with a manual survey. Geomorphologists from CNR have improved the model of the ancient seabed by performing surveys, core samplings and radiocarbon dating. That has provided the essential frame for modelling paleoenvironmental and paleosettlement reconstructions. By applying the studies upon the rise of the Mediterranean sea level during the Holocene (ANTONIOLI et alii 2007) and using values from the archaeological markers recorded all around the shore, the ancient coastline of the peninsula has been drawn along the current -1.40 meters depth. For the first time a direct perception of the real extension of the ancient city was caught, as well as the layout of the ancient shoreline, where the urban landscape was likely to have been replaced by retaining and protection walls and by the exploitation of coastal resources (such as stone quarries and boat dockings). Current investigations have focused on one of such structures, the so-called “Molo Schmiedt”, that might be explained as a breakwater, probably assembled to face an ancient progressive process of sea level rise. On the other side, the project has also an immediate outcome in the present, thanks to the recording of the current rate of coastal erosion and of the regional sea level rise, in order to detect the ongoing situation, evaluate future forecasts and arrange protection responses. A photogrammetric analysis of aerial pictures from the last century, combined with tide gauges, as well as a decennial direct experience of coastal loss and the application of predictive modelling of sea level rise by 2100 (from IPCC 2013) have led to map out the coastline of the future peninsula. Such a high-impact tool has been transmitted to public administrations, inspiring the planning and the accomplishment of protective and coast nourishment projects. Keywords: paleo sea level, Nora (Italy), coastal archaeology, bathymetry, paleo-environment POSTER SESSION Session 1: Paleo sea level data and GIA modelling Paper ID 116 Poster Board N°27 Geophysical Modeling Results and Mid-Holocene Relative Sea-Level Data from Northern Java, Indonesia Mann, Thomas (1); Kench, Paul Simon (2); Kneer, Dominik (3); Beetham, Eddie (2); Schöne, Tilo (4); Stocchi, Paolo (5); Rovere, Alessio (1,6); Marfai, Aris (7); Westphal, Hildegard (1,8) 1: Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Bremen, Germany; 2: School of Environment, Auckland, New Zealand; 3: Alfred-Wegener-Institut (AWI), Bremerhaven, Germany; 4: School of Environment, Auckland, New Zealand; 5: Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (GFZ), Potsdam, Germany; 6: NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Texel, Netherlands; 7: Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; 8: Department of Geosciences, University Bremen, Bremen, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] Well-constrained data on the timing and magnitude of mid- to late-Holocene relative sea-level (RSL) variations are required to improve our understanding of modern and future RSL changes on local and regional scales. However, published high-precision datasets from central Indonesia, an area that is considered particularly sensitive to future sea-level rise, are rare. In order to constrain geophysical model predictions for the mid-Holocene in the far field, we investigated a number of massive, fossil microatolls along the northern coastline of central Java, Indonesia. High-precision survey data taken with RTK GPS and reduced to mean sea level (msl) indicate that the majority of fossil corals on the reef flat are well above the height of living coral and present-day msl with elevations up to +1.2 m above msl. Samples from 14 emergent specimens have been extracted for radiocarbon dating. Results indicate a rise of relative sea level (RSL) between 6.4 – 7.1 ka BP. This record is closest to geophysical model predictions based on the ANICE-SELEN ice-sheet model coupled to an Earth model with VM1 viscosity profile. In this contribution we discuss the implications of these new findings with respect to tectonics, eustasy and isostasy, and what this could mean for the behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Holocene. Keywords: GIA, tectonics, fossil microatolls, southeast Asia POSTER SESSION Session 1: Paleo sea level data and GIA modelling Paper ID 190 Poster Board N°37 Superstorms at the End of the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e, ~128-116 ka)? Modeling Paleo Waves and the Transport of Giant Boulders. Rovere, Alessio (1); Harris, Daniel (2); Casella, Elisa (3); Lorscheid, Thomas (1); Stocchi, Paolo (4); Nandasena, Napayalage (5); Sandstrom, Michael (6); D'Andrea, William (6); Dyer, Blake (6); Raymo, Maureen (6) 1: University of Bremen, DE; 2: University of Queensland, AU; 3: Leibniz ZMT Bremen, DE; 4: NIOZ, Texel, NL; 5: University of Auckland, NZ; 6: LDEO, Columbia University, NY E-Mail: [email protected] We present the results of high-resolution field surveys and wave models along the cliffs of the northern part of the Island of Eleuthera, Bahamas. Previous studies have proposed that cliff top mega-boulders were emplaced at the end of the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e, ~128-116 ka) by giant swells caused by super-storms that find no counterpart in the Holocene (including historical times). Our results suggest that these boulders could have instead been transported from the cliff face to the top of the cliff by a storm analogous to the 1991 ‘Perfect Storm’, if sea level during MIS 5e sea level was more than 4 meters higher than today. We remark that the data- model approach used here is essential to interpreting the geologic evidence of extreme storms during past warm periods which, in turn, is an important tool for predicting the intensity of extreme storm events in future climates. Our results indicate also that, even without an increase in storm intensity, cliffs and hard coastal barriers might be subject to significant increases wave- generated stresses under conditions of sea levels modestly higher than present. Keywords: Last Interglacial, Sea level, MIS 5e, Superstorms POSTER SESSION Session 1: Paleo sea level data and GIA modelling Paper ID 192 Poster Board N°35 Exploiting New Holocene Sea-Level Archives to Inform Future Sea-Level Predictions: an Example from Wales Richards, Geoffrey (1); Gehrels, Roland (1); Jones, Laurence (2); Evans, Chris (2); Anderson, William (3) 1: University of York, United Kingdom; 2: Center for Ecology and Hydrology, United Kingdom; 3: Appalachian State University, USA E-Mail: [email protected] Current predictions of sea-level change around the UK up to the year 2100 include a land-level component that is calculated by a GIA model which, in turn, is calibrated by past relative sea- level observations. For some areas, such as most of Wales, GIA models are potentially unreliable as regional patterns of Holocene relative sea-level change are poorly constrained. The aim of this work is to establish new Holocene relative sea-level reconstructions from peat preserved in coastal freshwater back-barrier marshes at Abermawr in southwest Wales (Pembrokeshire) and Rhoscolyn in northwest Wales (Anglesey). These two sites are situated along an isostatic gradient as a result of Holocene subsidence of Pembrokeshire relative to Anglesey. This work builds on the methods by Gehrels and Anderson (2014) who first demonstrated the suitability of peat deposits in coastal freshwater back-barrier marshes for sea-level reconstructions. Methods to establish the stratigraphy of these sites include hand-drilled coring, ground-penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography and seismic surveys. Sea-level index points were collected from basal Holocene peat that was dated by radiocarbon methods and is immune to sediment compaction. Groundwater monitoring was used to show that the back-barrier water table is controlled by tide levels. Spectral analysis of the groundwater data clearly shows the relationship between the tidal and groundwater signals. We performed a Fisher-g test to calculate the significance of the tidal peaks. In all cases a peak associated with tidal constituents is shown to be highly significant. Groundwater modelling experiments were conducted to test the controls of stratigraphy, peat permeability and marsh recharge on the link between groundwater and sea level. We present six new compaction-free sea-level index points for northwest Wales and seven for southwest Wales. The northwest Wales data are used to test the possibility of a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand in this region.