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To understand past and future sea-level variability, it is important to know if during an interglacial the eustatic sea level is constant or oscillates by several meters around an average value. Several field sites within and outside the tropics have been interpreted to suggest such oscillations during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e (129–116 ka). Here, we present our analysis of one such non-tropical site, Hergla, where a facies succession indicates two foreshore deposits above each other, previously interpreted as MIS 5e sea-level highstand amplified by a second rise. Our study, based on field, microfacies, and optical age Bayesian statistics shows a sea-level rise forming the upper foreshore strata that coincided with the global sea-level rise of the MIS 5a interstadial. The site does therefore not provide evidence for the MIS 5e double peak. We conclude from our analysis that the facies-based proxy is insensitive to small-scale sea-level oscillation. Likewise, uncertainties associated with age estimates are too large to robustly infer a short-term sea-level change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quaternary sea-level cycles have caused dramatic depocentre shifts near the mouths of major rivers. The effects of these shifts on fault activity in passive margin settings is poorly known, as no studies have constrained passive margin fault throw-rate variability over 103 to 105 year time scales. Here we present 11 mean throw rates for the Tepetate-Baton Rouge fault zone along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast in southern Louisiana. These data were obtained by optically stimulated luminescence dating over time scales spanning the last interglacial to the late Holocene. The mean throw rate is ca. 0.22 mm year−1 during the late Holocene, ca. 0.03 mm year−1 during the last glacial and at least 0.07 mm year−1 during the last interglacial. Throw rates averaged over the late Pleistocene to present are spatially uniform within our study area. The temporal variability in throw rates suggests that shifts of the Mississippi River depocentre relative to this fault zone, driven by Quaternary sea-level cycles, may have imposed a significant control on fault activity. The late Holocene throw rate is at least in the order of magnitude smaller than the rates of land-surface subsidence in the Mississippi Delta, indicating that this fault zone is not a dominant contributor to subsidence in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]