Sea-level curve

Comparison of two sea level reconstructions during the last 500 Myr: Exxon curve and Hallam curve. The scale of change during the last glacial/interglacial transition is indicated with a black bar.

The sea-level curve is the representation of the changes of the sea level throughout the geological history.

The first such curve is the Vail curve or Exxon curve. The names of the curve refer to the fact that in 1977 a team of Exxon geologists from Esso Production Research headed by Peter Vail published a monograph on global eustatic sea-level changes. Their sea-level curve was based on seismic and biostratigraphic data accumulated during petroleum exploration.^[1]

The Vail curve (and the monograph itself) was the subject of debate among geologists, because it was based on undisclosed commercially confidential stratigraphic data, and hence not independently verifiable.^[2] Because of this, there were later efforts to establish a sea-level curve based on non-commercial data.

In 1987–1988 a revised eustatic sea-level curve for the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras was published, now known as the Haq sea-level curve, in reference to the Pakistani-American Oceanographer Bilal Haq.^[1]

References

See also

• Sea level rise
• Sea level change
• Past changes in sea level
• Marine terrace

Physical oceanography
Waves	Airy wave theory Ballantine scale Benjamin–Feir instability Boussinesq approximation Breaking wave Clapotis Cnoidal wave Cross sea Dispersion Edge wave Equatorial waves Fetch Gravity wave Green's law Infragravity wave Internal wave Kelvin wave Kinematic wave Longshore drift Luke's variational principle Mild-slope equation Radiation stress Rogue wave Rossby wave Rossby-gravity waves Sea state Seiche Significant wave height Sneaker wave Soliton Stokes boundary layer Stokes drift Stokes wave Swell Trochoidal wave Tsunami megatsunami Undertow Ursell number Wave action Wave base Wave height Wave power Wave radar Wave setup Wave shoaling Wave turbulence Wave–current interaction Waves and shallow water one-dimensional Saint-Venant equations shallow water equations Wind wave model
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