By Janet Raloff
Sea levels began rising precipitously in the late 19th century and have since tripled the rate of climb seen at any time in at least two millennia, a detailed analysis of North Carolina marsh sediments shows.
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“This clearly shows the recent trend is not part of a natural cycle,” says Ken Miller of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who was not associated with the analysis.
Andrew Kemp of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues spent five years plumbing salt marsh sediments that had remained largely undisturbed for millennia. Kemp, now at Yale, and his team drilled cores at two sites, unearthing the microscopic remains of single-celled shelled organisms known as foraminifera.