Collaborative Research: NSF-BSF: Marsh-to-Beach Boundaries to Decode early Holocene Sea-Level Rise

Coastal regions worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to sea-level rise, flooding, shoreline erosion, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater resources. Understanding how coastlines responded to rapid sea-level rise in the past can provide valuable insights into the challenges coastal communities may face in the future. This project investigates a period from about 10,500 to 7,000 years ago, when global sea level rose rapidly after the last Ice Age. By studying submerged coastal landscapes along Israel's Mediterranean coast, the research will reconstruct how sea-level changes transformed shorelines, wetlands, and habitats used by some of the earliest coastal communities. The project will train students in field and laboratory research, promote international scientific collaboration, and make its data and visualizations freely available through an open-access digital platform. This project will develop the first continuous, high-resolution early- to mid-Holocene relative sea-level record for the eastern Mediterranean. The research will integrate shallow-marine geophysical surveys, sediment coring, radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating, sedimentological and paleoenvironmental analyses, and glacial isostatic adjustment modeling. The study will focus on submerged wetland–coastal sand boundaries preserved on Israel’s Carmel shelf, which record the landward migration of coastlines during Holocene sea-level rise. New sea-level index points derived from these deposits will be combined with existing geological and archaeological evidence through Bayesian hierarchical statistical modeling to reconstruct a probabilistic sea-level curve. The resulting chronology and three-dimensional reconstructions will be used to evaluate the timing and magnitude of rapid sea-level rise events, assess their geomorphic impacts on coastal landscapes, and improve understanding of the sources and consequences of postglacial sea-level change. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.