TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jara-Munoz, Julius
A1  - Melnick, Daniel
T1  - Unraveling sea-level variations and tectonic uplift in wave-built marine terraces, Santa Maria Island, Chile
JF  - Quaternary research : an interdisciplinary journal
N2  - The architecture of coastal sequences in tectonically-active regions results mostly from a combination of sea-level and land-level changes. The objective of this study is to unravel these signals by combining sequence stratigraphy and sedimentology of near-shore sedimentary sequences in wave-built terraces. We focus on Santa Maria Island at the south-central Chile margin, which hosts excellent exposures of coastal sediments from Marine Isotope Stage 3. A novel method based on statistical analysis of grain-size distributions coupled with fades descriptions provided a detailed account of transgressive-regressive cycles. Radiocarbon ages from paleosols constrain the chronology between >53 and similar to 31 cal ka BP. Because the influence of glaciations can be neglected, we calculated relative sea-level curves by tying the onset of deposition on a bedrock abrasion platform to a global sea-level curve. The observed depositional cycles match those predicted for uplift rates between 1.2 and 1.8 m/ka. The studied sedimentary units represent depositional cycles that resulted in reoccupation events of an existing marine terrace. Our study demonstrates wave-built marine terrace deposits along clastic shorelines in temperate regions can be used to distinguish between tectonic uplift and climate-induced sea-level changes.
KW  - Marine terraces
KW  - Wave-built terraces
KW  - Terrace reoccupation
KW  - Tectonic uplift
KW  - Sea-level change
KW  - Coastal sedimentation
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2014.10.002
SN  - 0033-5894
SN  - 1096-0287
VL  - 83
IS  - 1
SP  - 216
EP  - 228
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -