Holocene shorelines in Britain: recent studies

Abstract

Recent studies of Holocene shorelines in Britain have included only a few investigations of the nature and positions of shorelines, but five individual categories of mappable shorelines may be recognised. Shorelines in relation to vegetation and to marine transgression and regression have been subjects of extensive study along several parts of coastal Britain. Vegetational change may denote marine transgression or regression but need not denote changes of sea level. Similarly, marine transgression and regression are changes in the position of the land/sea interface rather than events determined by changes of global sea level. About half of the recent shoreline studies in Scotland have been concerned with the gradients of tilted shorelines. A growing interest is the relationship between former shorelines and sites of early human occupation. Few investigations have been concerned primarily with the chronology of Holocene shorelines.et.