Modern
perspectives
Morphological approaches
Morphology and stratigraphy
Neotectonics
Rock platforms
Glacier margins and sea level
Biostratigraphy
Isolation basins
Storegga Slide tsunami
Patterns of land uplift
Climate change and sea level
Bibliography
About this site
RCAHMS image
Scottish sea levels
6. Carselands
Influenced by the impressive nature of
the raised shore features of Scotland, most of the research undertaken had been
based upon an essentially morphological approach, with little detailed dating of
the shorelines identified. However this changed for sea levels reached during
the Holocene (the last 11000 years) as detailed stratigraphies beneath the “carselands”
of Scotland began to be studied in ever increasing detail (e.g. Smith et al.,
2010). “Carse” is a name used throughout Scotland to denote a flat, former
estuarine surface lying around the head of an estuary. Jamieson had first
realised the potential of the carse in studies of sea level change on his visit
to Blairdrummond, for the section he examined was cut in the carselands there.
Carseland stratigraphy had provided evidence for buried shorelines; by now it
was providing the opportunity for studies of the detailed fluctuations of land
and sea, for within the carse lay horizons of peat, which, having accumulated as
sea level changed, could be examined using microfossil analyses (usually of
pollen and diatoms) and dated by radiocarbon. Such work could provide a
framework for the identification of sequences of sea level change, and in the
ensuing decades a number of studies of different carseland areas on both East
and West coasts gradually revealed the detail of sea level changes during this
period, with many graphs produced showing very detailed changes in sea level as
shorelines were reached and subsequently abandoned at different levels away from
the centre of uplift (e.g. Smith et al., 2003). Eventually, studies disclosed at
least one dated, time-transgressive shoreline, supporting the original view of
Wright (e.g. Smith et al., 2002).