Chapter 2 - Trends, Timings, and Magnitudes

Abstract

A plethora of studies commenced in the aftermath of introduction of sequence stratigraphic concepts, which mostly centered around the applicability of the concepts for reinterpretation of sedimentary products on spatiotemporal scale, as a function of four major controls (tectonics, climate, sediment influx, and relative sea level fluctuation), durations of cycles and their consistency, stacked nature of the cycles and representations of perturbations within these cycles, local versus regional and global controls, and most importantly on the trends, causes, and mechanisms that acted as driver(s) of observed cyclicities. Debates were also initiated on timing the sea level fluctuation events in terms of absolute and relative scale, magnitudes of sea level rise and fall, response time of natural system to auto/allocyclic processes, and their ubiquitous nature. Standard relative sea level curves were also introduced into the literature that underwent repeated revisions, created groups of followers and nay-Sayers. Thus, this chapter provides a bird’s eye view on the prevailing consensus, or the lack of it, on the long- and short-term trends of sea level fluctuations, their timings, and magnitudes.