the florida state university college of arts and sciences evolution of ...

4) To further develop Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz grains, a
relatively new technique that has recently been used to directly date sandy coastal
features.
Potential Significance
The study of relict strandplains and their stratigraphic context has the potential to provide
high-resolution records that can be used to reconstruct the evolution of a coast (Zenkovitch,
1967). With the exception of the recent studies by Morton et al. (2000) and Blum et al. (2002),
this is a research area that is only recently being explored in the United States. The anticipated
outcome of this work is a detailed history that is expected to emerge from the geochronologic
and sedimentologic analyses of the dozen beach ridge sets on St. Vincent Island. Coastal
geomorphologic features, especially coastal barriers, are highly sensitive to sea-level change.
The dozen sets of beach ridges preserved on St. Vincent Island hold an unusually complete and
well-preserved record of the island’s response to this history of sea-level change during the late
Quaternary. The Quaternary period has been a time of major global change. Much of that
change, particularly sea-level change, has been geologically abrupt as can be seen in the Gulf of
Mexico sea level curve compiled by Balsillie and Donoghue (2004). An accurate determination
of how abrupt changes in sea level over the past few millennia have affected coastal landforms
may be critically important to our understanding of the nature and potential effects of global
change in the near future. The anticipated outcome of this project was a better understanding of
the response of coastal geologic environments to abrupt environmental change. Given that the
northeastern Gulf of Mexico is a stable margin and reflects global eustatic change, this project
will also have several broader impacts. It will answer some fundamental questions concerning
the impact of global change, in the form of abrupt sea-level change, on coastal environments.
An improved understanding of the history and timing of late Holocene climate-related events,
and of the response of coastal environments to those events, is an essential component in the
development of global change predictions over the next few centuries.
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