eustatic rise of sea- level? Evidence suggests that crustal subsidence is 

 affecting the area of New York City and southern New England at the present 

 time and has been continuing since the mid-Holocene . Tide gage studies and 

 precise leveling surveys confirm contemporary subsidence, while varied data 

 from the fields of archeology, physiography, stratigraphy, paleontology, 

 paleobotany, and radio-chronology extend the record back several thousand 

 years. (Introduction). 



102 FINKELSTEIN, K. , and FERLAND . M. A. 1987. "Back-Barrier Response to 

 Sea-Level Rise, Eastern Shore of Virginia," Nummedal , D., Pilkey, O.H., and 

 Howard, J. D. , eds . , Sea-Level Fluctuations and Coastal Evolution . Special 

 Publication No. 41, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, 

 Tulsa, OK, pp 145-156. 



The barrier and back-barrier environments of Virginia were examined to 

 determine the effects of sea- level change on the resulting stratigraphy. 

 Relative sea-level rise and/or a local sediment deficit have caused the 

 retreat of these barrier islands during the Holocene. The results, reflected 

 by the stratigraphy, are a narrowing of the back-barrier region, a decrease in 

 the tidal prism with a probable constriction of inlets, and an increase in the 

 infilling of marshes and tidal flats associated with calmer water conditions. 

 Core data show the progressive fine-grained infilling of the back-barrier 

 system. As infilling proceeds, the general back-barrier environment passes 

 from a higher energy lagoon to a lower energy salt marsh and tidal flats. The 

 sedimentary pattern depicts a fining-upward "regressive" stratigraphy behind 

 the receding barriers. (Authors). 



103 FISHER, J. J. 1980a. "Holocene Sea-Level Rise, Shoreline Erosion and 

 the Bruun Rule - Overview," Proceedings of the Per Bruun Symposium . Newport, 

 Rhode Island, International Geographical Union Commission on the Coastal 

 Environment, Bureau for Facility Research, Western Washington University, 

 Bellingham, Washington, pp 1-5. 



These papers on the application of the Bruun Rule to shoreline erosion 

 were part of a symposium that the author conducted as conference chairman as 

 part of the Atlantic Regional Conference of the International Commission of 

 the Coastal Environment at Newport, Rhode Island, in the fall of 1979. As 

 background information, briefly, the Bruun Rule postulates that erosion of the 

 shoreline is necessary on a rising sea- level to maintain a profile of equi- 

 librium if there is sediment supply deficit. At the 23rd International 

 Geographic Union's Congress in Moscow, U.S.S.R., in the summer of 1976, which 

 the author attended, application of this concept was suggested, in part, as an 

 explanation of some shoreline erosion. The author reported on the symposium 

 in Geotimes (Fisher 1977a). The following summer, 1977, at the 10th Interna- 

 tional Quaternary Association's Congress in Birmingham, England, at the ses- 

 sion on Quaternary shorelines, the author presented (Fisher 1977b) 

 information on this concept as applied to the Rhode Island and North Carolina 

 coasts of the U.S.A. as it was affected by the Holocene rising sea-level. 

 (Author) . 



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