33
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. J. Culver (ed.), Troubled Waters, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52383-1_3
Chapter 3
Time and Tide Wait for No Man
Andrew C. Kemp and Benjamin P. Horton
Abstract Relative sea level is the difference in height between the coast and sea
surface. It changes across space and through time in response to many different
physical processes operating on a range of scales. Using an example from North
Carolina, USA, we introduce some of these key processes and explore how their
importance varies on timescales from hours (e.g., hurricanes and tides) to millennia
(e.g., ongoing subsidence of the coast). Below the salt marshes of North Carolina
(and elsewhere) are sequences of sediment that accumulated over thousands of
years and record relative sea-level changes. Geologists collect this sediment, establish its age and interrogate it to understand when and how relative sea level changed
long before people began to make systematic measurements. This research shows
that the rate of rise during the twentieth century was without precedent in
~2000 years.
Keywords Salt marsh · Relative sea level · Foraminifera · Isostasy · Outer Banks ·
North Carolina · Fieldwork
A. C. Kemp (*)
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
e-mail: andrew.kemp@tufts.edu
B. P. Horton
Asian School of the Environment and Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: bphorton@ntu.edu.sg
I’m just come sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watchin’ the tide roll away
I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time
Looks like nothin’s gonna change
Everything seems to stay the same
–Otis Redding (1968)
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. J. Culver (ed.), Troubled Waters, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52383-1_3
Chapter 3
Time and Tide Wait for No Man
Andrew C. Kemp and Benjamin P. Horton
Abstract Relative sea level is the difference in height between the coast and sea
surface. It changes across space and through time in response to many different
physical processes operating on a range of scales. Using an example from North
Carolina, USA, we introduce some of these key processes and explore how their
importance varies on timescales from hours (e.g., hurricanes and tides) to millennia
(e.g., ongoing subsidence of the coast). Below the salt marshes of North Carolina
(and elsewhere) are sequences of sediment that accumulated over thousands of
years and record relative sea-level changes. Geologists collect this sediment, establish its age and interrogate it to understand when and how relative sea level changed
long before people began to make systematic measurements. This research shows
that the rate of rise during the twentieth century was without precedent in
~2000 years.
Keywords Salt marsh · Relative sea level · Foraminifera · Isostasy · Outer Banks ·
North Carolina · Fieldwork
A. C. Kemp (*)
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
e-mail: andrew.kemp@tufts.edu
B. P. Horton
Asian School of the Environment and Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: bphorton@ntu.edu.sg
I’m just come sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watchin’ the tide roll away
I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time
Looks like nothin’s gonna change
Everything seems to stay the same
–Otis Redding (1968)