Biological indicators of Holocene sea-level and climatic variations on rocky coasts of tropical and subtropical regions

Formation of Late Quaternary paleoshorelines in Crete, Eastern Mediterranean

“…Presently these reefbuilders colonise a narrow zone within ∼1 m of sea-level (Laborel et al, 1994;Sivan et al, 2010), with the top of the biozone within ±0.25 m of mean sea-level (Sivan et al, 2010). The biozone has consistently occupied this altitude range in the eastern Mediterranean through the last ∼7 kyr (Laborel and Laborel-Deguen, 1996;Antonioli et al, 1999), and its upper limit can be used with confidence to accurately (±0.25 m) define the altitude of sea-level since ∼7 kyr.…”

The reef builder gastropod Dendropoma petreaum – A proxy of short and long term climatic events in the Eastern Mediterranean

“…The second archive is the vermetid reef builder D. petraeum to a sessile irregularcoiled gastropods that develop dense aggregations on the abrasion platform edges and grow in the lower intertidal zone, mainly in correspondence with Mean Sea Level (MSL; Safriel, 1966;Tzur and Safriel, 1978;Ben-Elihau, 1975;Calvo et al, 1998). The presence of vermetid reefs in subtropical waters, their distribution across the Mediterranean and the possibility of performing 14 C measurements allowed their use as paleo-MSL markers (Laborel and Laborel-Deguen, 1996). d 18 O of D. petraeum reefs from the western Mediterranean were used as climate proxies of the past 500 years (Antonioli et al, 1999;Silenzi et al, 2004) recording SST changes with low resolution during the LIA.…”

Fossils, sediments, tectonics

“…lamellosa typically constructs banks in shallow water. Tropical littoral oysters grow from the surface down to 10-20 m (Laborel and Laborel-Deguen 1996). The recent species Ostrea edulis, which is quite similar to O. lamellosa, lives in environments with normal salinity, in very shallow water (Laurain 1984).…”

“…The Mediterranean species L. lithophaga is restricted to extremely shallow marine environments and is considered an excellent indicator of upwards co-seismic movements (Laborel and Laborel-Deguen 1996). Its optimal zone of occurrence is immediately below sea level, giving it a very narrow range in the microtidal Mediterranean Sea.…”