Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 12 January 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5502, pp. 290 - 293
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5502.290
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Orbital Forcing of the Marine Isotope Stage 9 Interglacial

C. H. Stirling,12* T. M. Esat,3 K. Lambeck,3 M. T. McCulloch,3 S. G. Blake,3 D.-C. Lee,12 A. N. Halliday12

Milankovitch orbital forcing theory has been used to assign time scales to many paleoclimate records. However, the validity of this theory remains uncertain, and independent sea-level chronologies used to test its applicability have been restricted largely to the past ~135,000 years. Here, we report U-series ages for coral reefs formed on Henderson Island during sea-level high-stands occurring at ~630,000 and ~330,000 years ago. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that interglacial climates are forced by Northern Hemisphere summer solar insolation centered at 65°N latitude, as predicted by Milankovitch theory.

1 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1063, USA.
2 Institute for Isotope Geology and Mineral Resources, Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zentrum, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
3 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: stirling{at}erdw.ethz.ch

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Open-System Coral Ages Reveal Persistent Suborbital Sea-Level Cycles.
W. G. Thompson and S. L. Goldstein (2005)
Science 308, 401-404
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Centennial-scale cycles in middle Holocene sea level along the southeastern Swedish Baltic coast.
S.-Y. Yu (2003)
Geological Society of America Bulletin 115, 1404-1409
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Techniques for Measuring Uranium-series Nuclides: 1992-2002.
S. J. Goldstein, S. J. Goldstein, and C. H. Stirling (2003)
Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 52, 23-57
   Full Text »    PDF »
Uranium-series Dating of Marine and Lacustrine Carbonates.
R. L. Edwards, R.L. Edwards, C.D. Gallup, and H. Cheng (2003)
Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 52, 363-405
   Full Text »    PDF »
Start of the last interglacial period at 135 ka: Evidence from a high Alpine speleothem.
C. Spotl, A. Mangini, N. Frank, R. Eichstadter, and S. J. Burns (2002)
Geology 30, 815-818
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Accelerated Pleistocene coral extinctions in the Caribbean Basin shown by uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating.
S. R. Getty, Y. Asmerom, T. M. Quinn, and A. F. Budd (2001)
Geology 29, 639-642
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Sea Level Change Through the Last Glacial Cycle.
K. Lambeck and J. Chappell (2001)
Science 292, 679-686
   Abstract »    Full Text »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)