When global sea levels are higher than today's 6,000 years ago – Watts, did corals flourish?

From Notrickszone

Kenneth Richard on April 3, 2025

As sea levels increase, coral reefs expand and prosper, while as sea levels drop, they experience millennium growth cracks and “closed” or “mass deaths” phases.

Based on the new global sea level reconstruction (Fieldman et al., 2025), global sea levels are higher than today 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. Thereafter, global sea levels fell throughout the late Holocene.

From about 4500 years ago to 640 years ago, the previously booming coral reefs suffered a “mass death” and “closed” phase as accommodation space gradually declines in the Red Sea region.

The growth of this millennial “closed” coral reefs is not limited to this area of ​​research, but the decline in coral coverage has been a global phenomenon associated with global sea levels throughout the late Holocene.

“Global rest in the development of coral reefs […] Throughout the late Holocene, it was driven primarily by the appreciation of sea level decline and resulted in the lack of vertical accommodation space…”

“In this study, we not only propose local sea level conditions that lead to specific coral reef closures or clefts, but also a global phenomenon of sea level drop.”

“Reducing accommodation space through degraded sea levels leads to mass mortality or sea level constraining corals.”

Considering that sea level rise is beneficial to corals, sea level decline largely eliminates the potential for growth, and future sea level rises may lead to a “significant increase in coral coverage”.

“Future sea level rise may provide additional accommodation space for current sea level constrained reef systems, which may lead to a significant increase in coral coverage.”

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Image source: Fieldman et al., 2025

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