A LATE HOLOCENE SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA

A highstand of relative sea level occurred at 4 2 ka in Murrells Inlet on the northern coast of South Carolina The highstand was followed by a sea level fall of 2 m until 3 6 ka and then a slow steady sea level rise of 10 cm century to the present Although a mid Holocene highstand has been suggested by others it has not been well constrained Strong differential submergence between Murrells Inlet and Santee Delta South Carolina has occurred over the last 4 ka probably as a result of sediment loading by and subsidence of the Santee Delta system The occurrence of the 4 2 ka highstand corresponds to the range 7 4 ka of the mid Holocene Hypsithermal The rate and magnitude of the relative sea level fluctuation are similar to those projected for future flooding and suggest that evaluation of the Hypsithermal highstand may provide an insight to projected greenhouse effect related change for the future indicate that such an event may have been a highly local ized rise in relative sea level or that the evidence of the fluctuation was destroyed by coastal processes The record of the mid Holocene relative sea level oscillation in South Carolina was limited to a small local tidal marsh system where the deposits had not yet been reworked by creeks Reworking of sequences containing relative sea level rec ords has hampered efforts to produce detailed mid to late Ho ocene relative sea level histories at other sites The Ho locene record on the adjacent shelf of North Carolina and South Carolina is poorly preserved Hine and Snyder 1985 Preservation of deposits recording detailed relative sea level changes is also limited within relatively protected coastal systems Gayes and Bokuniewicz 1991 In this paper we present a relative sea level curve from tidal wetland deposits of Murrells Inlet South Carolina that documents a mid Holocene relative sea level highstand A second data set from the Santee River Delta shows differ ential Holocene submergence along the coast that may have resulted from sediment loading by the Santee Delta