Relative sea level during the Holocene in Uruguay

BRACCO R.; INDA H.; DEL PUERTO L.; CAPDEPONT I.; PANARIO D.; CASTIÑEIRA C.; GARCÍA-RODRÍGUEZ F.

PALAEOGEOGRAPHY PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY PALAEOECOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2014 vol. 401 p. 166 - 170

0031-0182

Martinez and Rojas (2013) published a paper about the relative sea level during the Holocene in Uruguay. However, they incurred into a series of omissions, inaccuracies, errors and critics to our work, that need to be amended, rectified and argued. In response we present a historical background about the research on this issue in Uruguay. We refute the comments made about the empirical framework used to make the first sea-level curve for Uruguay (Bracco et al., 2008, 2011b). We point out the assumptions on which is based the curve proposed by Martinez and Rojas (2013) are to some extent mistaken, but also the limitations of the statistical techniques used, and errors ? mainly systematic - that are included in their formulation. We present evidence that the decrease in sea level, from middle Holocene would not have been constant; instead, a rapid se level change decrease would have taken place by 4300 yr BP. Finally, we compare our sea level curve, with that proposed by Martinez and Rojas, but also we corrected the errors incurred in their formulation. We conclude that the similarity supports the validity of our curve, referring also its similarity to the regional model of sea level change.