Historical perspectives

Catastrophists and Uniformitarians

TF Jamieson and isostasy

The Coves of Caiplie, near Crail, a site of Early Christian worship

isokinetic:

when the rate of isostatic uplift corresponds approximately with that of eustatic sea-level rise

Scottish sea levels

Wright and the isokinetic theory

Struck by the fact that both land and sea must have moved, in 1934 William Wright observed that raised shorelines in such areas as Scotland may have been produced during periods when the rise of the sea surface during and after the decay of the ice, together with the rise of the land, envisaged by Jamieson, may have resulted in periods when, in some coastal areas, no apparent change was taking place, and that such areas would migrate away from the centre of uplift over time as the uplift of the land and the rise of the sea both declined. Thus shorelines would be time-transgressive, or diachronous. He termed this concept the “isokinetic theory”. Although this term is not used today, the concept remains important in understanding Scottish sea levels. The concept explained how shorelines in Scotland could be “tilted”, declining in altitude away from the centre of uplift as Jamieson had previously observed, and showed how older shorelines might slope more steeply than younger ones.
 
The many advances in understanding sea level change in Scotland now ceased as the view that shorelines were actually horizontal at set levels, as misleadingly represented on Geological Survey maps showing levels at intervals of 25 feet, gained currency. The torch of discovery had now long passed to Scandinavia, where since the nineteenth century, scientists had been further developing the concepts first introduced by Jamieson.