K. Lambeck, LATE PLEISTOCENE AND HOLOCENE SEA-LEVEL CHANGE IN GREECE AND SOUTH-WESTERN TURKEY - A SEPARATION OF EUSTATIC, ISOSTATIC AND TECTONIC CONTRIBUTIONS, Geophysical journal international, 122(3), 1995, pp. 1022-1044
Sea-level change during Late Pleistocene and Holocene times is a combi
nation of eustatic, isostatic and tectonic contributions. In the centr
al Mediterranean Sea region of Greece and western Turkey, the isostati
c components are important, due to the changing gravitational potentia
l of the Earth, the readjustment of the crust upon the removal of the
large ice sheets and the addition of the meltwater into the oceans, in
cluding the Mediterranean. Changes in relative sea-level due to these
glacio-hydro-isostatic adjustments have reached amplitudes of 1 mm yr(
-1) during the last few thousand years. A model for the isostatic cont
ribution to sea-level change, including the movement of shorelines due
to the combined eustatic-isostatic changes, is developed, based on ea
rth-model and ice-sheet parameters estimated from sea-level observatio
ns from other areas. Comparisons of this model with observations of se
a-level change permit rates of vertical movement to be estimated for L
ate Holocene time. Allowance for the isostatic factors makes a signifi
cant difference to these rates. The plains of Argolis, Lakonia, Messin
ia and Navarine, in the southern Peloponnese, for example, appear to b
e tectonically stable on time-scales of a few thousand years and longe
r, consistent with the position of the Last Interglacial shoreline clo
se to the present-day sea-level. The observations here, of a rising se
a-level, are largely the consequence of the glacio-hydro isostasy and
not of a long-term tectonic process. Crete as a whole is subject to te
ctonic uplift, but at variable rates, and forms part of an arcuate zon
e of uplift extending from Rhodes and Karpathos in the east to Kithera
in the west at rates that locally exceed 4 mm yr(-1). The southern sh
ore of the Gulf of Corinthos is also subject to uplift at rates approa
ching 1.5 mm yr(-1). These isostatically corrected estimates for the p
ast few thousand years are in agreement with longer-term estimates bas
ed on the position of the Last Interglacial shoreline. Only on the Per
achora Peninsula do the tectonic rates over these two time intervals a
ppear to be in disagreement, with the Late Holocene rates being much h
igher than the long-term rates.