A trail of crumbs: ancient geomorphological indicators of past sea-level rise in the Northern Adriatic Sea (Italy)

The reconstruction of timing and modes of the last marine transgression is often hampered by the scarceness of available indicators, which is caused by bad preservation, lack of formation or difficult accessibility.

This is particularly true for the first period of the Holocene, between 7 ka and 11 ka cal, when the rate of transgression was high (hence little to absent formation of possible indicators) and the sea level was placed below ca. -20 m MSL (hence scarce accessibility).

Shoreline deposits and erosional landforms have long been recognized as geomorphological indicators of past sea levels. Such indicators (e.g. beach ridges, tidal notches) can be both submerged or exposed due to RSL variations of coastal progradation.

A major group of potential indicators which, up to date, is largely underrepresented, is constituted by paleo tidal inlets. Being excavated up to several meters below the surrounding lagoon and filled during the migration or deactivation of the inlet, such landforms may represent outstanding archives with a potentially high chance of preservation from erosion. Paleo tidal inlets can be easily recognized and cataloged through shallow sub-bottom profiling methods.

The analysis of almost 7000 km of high resolution seismic profiles collected in the northern Adriatic Sea allowed to recognized almost 100 paleo tidal inlets dating to the early Holocene, which constitute the only widespread witnesses of the post-LGM marine transgression in the area. Paleo tidal inlets are essential features to the paleo-geographic and -environmental reconstruction and provide new data to constrain the position of the transgressive coastlines. The presence of widespread lagoon environments during a phase of strong RSL rise comes from the interplay between sediment dispersal operated by the main fluvial actors of the area and phases of slowdown of the RSL rise. This study sheds light on the phenomena affecting coastal plains in response to RSL rise and constitutes the first report of an extensive distribution of paleo tidal inlets on a regional scale.