Submerged Shorelines on Continental Shelves of the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk, USSR

Abstract

This paper describes old shorelines formed on the shelves of the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk during the latest postglacial transgression. A complex of features detected during geological surveying on the shelf areas are employed in the identification and mapping of old shorelines. The irregular but progressive development of the latest postglacial transgression contains several well-defined stages and phases that are recorded by shoreline features that include distinctive relief forms and complexes of littoral, marine, and lagoonal sediments. Comparison of submerged shorelines lying on the continental shelf in this region suggests that their common formation is related to an irregular (pulsating) rise of global sea level at the end of the late Pleistocene and continuing into the Holocene. Differences in hypsometric positions of similarly aged shorelines in different regions and the formation of additional shorelines at intermediate levels in certain areas are assumed to be associated with neotectonic movements.