Milankovitch hypothesis supported by precise dating of coral reefs and deep-sea sediments.
Barbados provides a possibly unique opportunity for reconstruction of the times and elevations of late-Pleistocene high stands of the sea. The island appears to be rising from the sea at a uniform rate that is fast enough to separate in elevation coral-reef tracts formed at successive high stands of the sea. Unaltered coral found in the lower terraces enables high-precision Th(230): U(234) and Pa(231): U(235) dating. Three distinct high stands of the sea are found about 122,000, 103,000, and 82,000 years ago. New Pa(231) and Th(230) dates from a deep-sea core also indicate that Ericson's W-X cold-to-warm climatic change occurred close to 126,000 years ago. These data show a parallelism over the last 150,000 years between changes in Earth's climate and changes in the summer insolation predicted from cycles in the tilt and precession of Earth's axis.
Broecker
W S
WS
Thurber
D L
DL
Goddard
J
J
Ku
T L
TL
Matthews
R K
RK
Mesolella
K J
KJ