Using foraminiferal transfer functions to produce high-resolution sea-level records from salt-marsh deposits, Maine, USA

Quantitative analyses of foraminiferal distributions along the coast of Mai ne are used to provide transfer functions for reconstruction of sea-level c hanges from fossil foraminiferal assemblages. The indicative meaning of fos sil assemblages is most accurately predicted by a training set that incorpo rates live and dead foraminifera and that uses flooding duration, not heigh t, as the predictor variable. Sea-level records are produced for two sites in Maine (USA): a middle marsh site in Scarboro and a high marsh site in Ma chiasport. These records offer temporal resolution of five to seven years a nd span the past century. They are compared with instrumental data from a n earby tidal station to assess their accuracy. Strong correlations are found between the geologic records and the observational data, in particular bet ween the foraminiferal record from Machiasport and the tide-gauge record fr om Eastport (r(2) = 0.83, p = 0.005). Thus a foraminifera-based transfer-fu nction approach offers great potential for resolving decadal-scale sea-leve l changes from the geologic record.