Late Pleistocene barrier-island sequence along the southern Delmarva Peninsula: Implications for middle Wisconsin sea levels

Abstract

Evidence for a middle Wisconsin sea-level high at or above modern limits along the east coast of the US has long been controversial. Most reports have been dismissed as poorly dated or lacking unequivocal documentation of a marine transgression. The authors describe here a /sup 14/C-dated, middle Wisconsin transgressive sequence with an extant subaerial barrier facies along the southern Delmarva Peninsula. This sequence indicates that sea levels were near their present position between ca. 23 and 34 ka; it may correlate with other inferred similar-age littoral deposits of the area, and it suggests that the evidence for glacioeustatic fluctuations during the Wisconsin Glaciation should be reconsidered.