Sedimentary indications and absolute chronology of Holocene relative sea-level changes retrieved from coastal lagoon deposits on Samsø, Denmark

Coastal lagoons are a typical feature of the landscape in central Denmark. The lagoons formed when basins within the inherited glacial topography were flooded by the mid-Holocene sea-level rise. The transgression initiated coastal geomorphological processes and prompted marine sedimentation in the inundated areas. Despite their common occurrence and wide distribution in the area, coastal lagoons and their deposits have rarely been studied as sedimentary archives. The absolute chronology established for the basal marine deposits in sediment cores retrieved from coastal lagoons on the island of Samsø, southern Kattegat Sea, central Denmark, is evidence of a nearly synchronous onset of marine sedimentation at different elevations. This is interpreted as a new indication of a period of very rapid relative sea-level (RSL) rise between 7.6 and 7.2 ka BP. Following a period of RSL highstand, a marked facies change in the deposits from an inactive lagoon yields consistent ages of around 4.1 ka BP and may be an indication of a marked RSL fall. This study illustrates the potential of coastal lagoons as sedimentary archives for the reconstruction of RSL in SW Scandinavia and in similar coastal environments elsewhere.