Bermuda sea level during the last interglacial

Bermuda is a stable, mid-oceanic carbonate platform for which a particularly complete record of sea level fluctuation during the period ∼135–70 kyr has been reconstructed from 230Th/234U dating of corals and speleothems, amino acid racemization dating of molluscs, and a reinterpretation of geological field relations. During the past 5 yr Bermuda has been the focus of an extensive geochronological programme which has included a detailed re-examination of the geology (to be reported elsewhere1–3). Here we focus only on the latest interglacial sequence. We use the stratigraphie nomenclature of Land et al.4, but will present new age data and interpretations of geological relationships. This information, as it relates to the last interglacial period, is given in Tables 1 and 2 and summarized in Fig. 1. We show that during the last interglacial period, sea level was only above its present level for a few thousand years at about 125 kyr when it stood at +4 to +6m. At ∼105 and ∼85 kyr, sea level rose to between −15 and −20 m as constrained by ages for submerged speleothems and eolianites. At ∼95 kyr sea level in Bermuda was at least −15 m below present level.