Abstract
Regional datasets of the vertical distribution of intertidal foraminifera are useful to reconstruct Holocene sea-level changes from fossil foraminifera in estuaries and salt marshes. In this paper, we present a new foraminiferal dataset from the Ythan Estuary (Scotland) and combine it with data from eight other coastal sites from England, Denmark and Germany to produce a regional modern training set for the North Sea. We recognise a correlation between foraminifera and tidal elevation which makes the foraminifera suitable as sea-level indicators. We subdivide the data into subregional training sets and develop WA and WAPLS transfer functions. Applying a variety of statistical methods, including detrended canonical analysis, cross-validation by bootstrapping and leave-one-site-out, and the modern analogue technique, we establish the most appropriate transfer function from which to reconstruct early Holocene sea-level changes in a sediment core from the western North Sea coast. Results show that the subregional England/Scotland training set provides the most appropriate sea-level reconstructions, with decimetre-scale uncertainties. The techniques we use in this study, that consider both the modern and fossil assemblages to determine the best training set and transfer function, are suggested as a template for the development of regional transfer functions based on foraminifera and other intertidal microfossils.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 102055 |
| Journal | Marine Micropaleontology |
| Volume | 169 |
| Early online date | 21 Oct 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to the editor Richard Jordan and two anonymous reviewers for their comments that greatly improved the early version of the paper. G.R was funded by a NERC studentship through the ACCE (Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment) Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant No. 2210800). The modern Ythan samples were collected, prepared and counted as part of P.M's University of York BSc thesis: ?Surface distributions of salt-marsh foraminifera for the Ythan estuary, NE Scoltand: an unprecedented modern analogue for Holocene sea-level studies?, 2018. We thank W McKay and the Scottish Natural Heritage for providing support and access to the field site. RE, YM and RG worked on and provided the previously published data. We thank the technicians at the Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, particularly Maria Gehrels for her assistance with laboratory work on the Ythan samples, and the countless other people who contributed to the collection and collation of the foraminifera data from the existing sites. We also acknowledge PALSEA, a working group of the International Union for Quaternary Sciences (INQUA) and Past Global Changes (PAGES), which in turn received support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Funding Information:
We are grateful to the editor Richard Jordan and two anonymous reviewers for their comments that greatly improved the early version of the paper. G.R was funded by a NERC studentship through the ACCE (Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment) Doctoral Training Partnership (Grant No. 2210800 ). The modern Ythan samples were collected, prepared and counted as part of P.M's University of York BSc thesis: ‘Surface distributions of salt-marsh foraminifera for the Ythan estuary, NE Scoltand: an unprecedented modern analogue for Holocene sea-level studies’, 2018. We thank W McKay and the Scottish Natural Heritage for providing support and access to the field site. RE, YM and RG worked on and provided the previously published data. We thank the technicians at the Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, particularly Maria Gehrels for her assistance with laboratory work on the Ythan samples, and the countless other people who contributed to the collection and collation of the foraminifera data from the existing sites. We also acknowledge PALSEA, a working group of the International Union for Quaternary Sciences (INQUA) and Past Global Changes (PAGES), which in turn received support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
Keywords
- Foraminifera
- Salt marsh
- Sea level
- Transfer function