FISC - St. Petersburg
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Tile 7/8
When Did the Upper-Slope Terrace Form?: The upper-slope terrace, which is shelf-wide and presumed to be an erosional feature (Lidz et al., 2003), supports four tracts of outlier reefs off Rock Key and Sand Key Reefs. The deepest and oldest coral cored from the largest outlier was recovered from a depth of 21.7 m below present sea level and dated at 106.5 ka (Toscano, 1996). That outlier reef is ~29 m high (Fig. 106A), which leaves corals in the bottom ~7.3 m of the reef of an unknown age. The bottom corals were initially inferred to be 140 and 125 ka (Lidz et al., 2003). Based on ages of the Q Units derived from amino-acid dates on the bivalve Mercenaria (Mitterer, 1974; Perkins, 1977), Lidz et al. (2003) inferred a youngest possible time of pre-outlier-reef terrace formation at ~175 ka, during the regression that followed a highstand of sea level at ~180 ka when the Q4 Unit is believed to have accumulated (Table 7). Studies of coral reefs now uplifted on the Huon Peninsula of New Guinea also indicate a highstand occurred around 180 ka (Bloom et al., 1974; Chappell, 1974a). Comparison (Lidz, 2006) of that time period with a widely accepted marine oxygen-isotope curve (Fig. 80A) showed that the 180-ka sea level, albeit at a highstand, was below elevation of the Florida shelf, including the upper-slope terrace. Thus, the terrace had to have pre-dated that time. The last pre-106.5-ka highstand that flooded the terrace and shelf occurred at ~195 ka (Fig. 80A). Lidz (2006) revised the youngest possible time of terrace formation to that highstand regression at approximately 190 ka. The marine-isotope curve also showed that sea level at 140 ka was well below elevation of the Florida shelf, thus negating 140-ka corals at the bottom of the outlier reefs. The curve supports the initial inference of 125-ka corals at the base of the outliers and indicates that corals representing the isotope Stage 6/5 transition at about that time are now the most likely vintages to be present. |