Reconstructing sea-level changes on the Eastern Adriatic Sea (Croatia) – an overview

Abstract

Rocky karstified coast, low tidal range, indented shoreline with numerous islands, diverse coastal biocenoses, abundant palaeontological, archaeological and historical evidence, relatively dense tide-gauge stations and developing GPS network – all these facts offer optimal prerequisite for the sea-level changes studies on the Croatian coast. Through various methodological approaches (geomorphological, biostratigraphical, archaeological/historical, mareographic, geodetic, radiometric), most of these issues have been used in order to reconstruct relative sea and land motions, yielding scattered and sometimes erroneous results. Unfortunately, some of them have been often uncritically used as the basis for the subsequent research. Only recently, with multidisciplinary approach, sequences of relative sea-level variations have been successfully revealed, but opportunities that eastern Adriatic coast offers will, undoubtedly, ensure relatively rapid research progress.