A review of the Milankovitch climatic beat: template for Plio-Pleistocene sea-level changes and sequence stratigraphy

The Milankovitch theory of climate change predicts that global ice volume, and hence sea-level changes, were controlled by long-term quasi-periodic va riations in the earth's orbital parameters (obliquity, precession and eccen tricity). delta(18)O records from deep-sea cores are a proxy for sea-level changes and have an orbitally tuned chronology covering the last 5 Ma. The sea-level signal in delta(18)O data from east equatorial Pacific core V19-3 0 is well calibrated with sea-level data from coral terraces on Huon Penins ula, New Guinea, over the last 140 ka, and with less certainty back to 340 ka. Over the last 140 ka, the sea-level contribution to benthic glacial-int erglacial isotopic variation is about 1.2-1.3 parts per thousand or 0.011 p arts per thousand m(-1), and for core V19-30 the glacial-age temperature co ntribution from deep ocean cooling of 1.7 degrees C is 0.4 parts per thousa nd. Independent constraints on Late Pliocene sea-level changes interpreted from shallow marine continental margin records indicate that the sea-level delta(18)O calibration may not have been the same over the last 2.6 Ma, and the temperature correction is unlikely to have been the same in all glacia l periods and all ocean settings. Nevertheless, the astronomically tuned is otopic records from deep-sea cores provide an accurate chronology and appro ximate the magnitudes of sea-level changes over the last 2.6 Ma, against wh ich the facies architecture of stratigraphic sequences can be analysed and the concepts of sequence stratigraphy properly evaluated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.