ABSTRACT: Correlation of Sea Level Falls Interpreted from Atoll Stratigraphy with Turbidites in Adjacent Basins

Jonathan M. Lincoln

Past sea levels can be derived from any atoll subsurface sediments deposited at or near sea level by determining the ages of deposition and correcting the present depths to the sediments for subsidence of the underlying edifice since the times of deposition. A sea level curve constructed by this method consists of discontinuous segments, each corresponding to a period of rising relative sea level and deposition of a discrete sedimentary package.

Discontinuities in the sea level curve derived by this method correspond to relative sea level falls and stratigraphic hiatuses in the atoll subsurface. During intervals of relative sea level fall an atoll emerges to become a high limestone island. Sea level may fluctuate several times during a period of atoll emergence to become a high limestone island. Sea level may fluctuate several times during a period of atoll emergence without depositing sediments on top of the atoll. Furthermore, subaerial erosion may remove a substantial part of the depositional record of previous sea level fluctuations. For these reasons we must look to the adjacent basins to complement the incomplete record of sea level change recorded beneath atolls.

During lowstands of sea level, faunas originally deposited near sea level on an atoll may be eroded and redeposited as turbidites in deep adjacent basins. Three such turbidites penetrated during deep-sea drilling at Sites 462 and 315 in the central Pacific correlate well with a late Tertiary sea level curve based on biostratigraphic ages and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr chronostratigraphy for core from Enewetak Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands. Further drilling of the archipelagic aprons adjacent to atolls will improve the sea level history that may be inferred from atoll stratigraphy.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990