Sea-level Change Since the Ice Age

A project to reconstruct sea-level change history since the last ice age is being undertaken by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS), installing precise-positioning infrastructure and conducting fieldwork off the coast of Belize in Central America to assist the Smithsonian Institution. NGS will use this opportunity to conduct a series of simultaneous Global Navigation Satellite System observations on several islands.

This study is an attempt to reconstruct relative sea level for the past 10,000 years. The mangrove islands in Belize are ideally suited for this purpose, because they are tectonically stable and isolated from the influence of human activity, land-derived sediment, and fresh water. An accurate reconstruction of sea-level history since the last ice age is important to the development of models and the identification of rapid climatic events that may have occurred.