Late Holocene Sea-Level Record in a Core from the Puget Lowland, Washington

Abstract

Diatoms and lithological facies of an 8.45-m core collected from Shine swamp (47°52′20″N lat, 122°41′45″W long; about 2 m above the mean tide level) in the northern Puget Lowland reveal a rise in relative sea level during the past 6000 yr. A layer of fresh-water peat at a depth of 6.6-6.3 m (ca. 7000-5000 yr B.P.) indicates a low stand of the sea in early and middle Holocene time. About 5000 yr ago the rise in relative sea level resulted in accumulation of subtidal or lower intertidal clayey gyttja and gyttja which contain mainly marine and brackish-water diatoms (80–95%). By about 3500 yr B.P., the basin had shoaled to upper intertidal levels, and peat began to accumulate again while the sea continued its relative rise. During the period of this continuous peat growth, several alterations in fresh-water and marine/brackish-water diatom assemblages took place, indicating slight differences in the contemporaneous sea-level rise and vertical peat growth.