Contemporary Salt-Marsh Foraminifera from Southern California and Implications for Reconstructing Late Holocene Sea-Level Changes

Abstract We report on the distribution of contemporary foraminifera in salt marshes Mission Bay and Carpinteria Slough, Southern California. Combining these data with existing datasets from Seal Beach Tijuana, we explore potential for a regional training set to underpin quantitative reconstructions paleoenvironmental change preserved salt-marsh sediments. demonstrate that species’ distributions are highly dependent elevation, suggesting fossil foraminiferal assemblages here, as many other regions, useful depositional elevation indicators. Transfer functions provide predictions cores decimeter-scale uncertainties. Nevertheless, interpretation marsh-surface is complicated by complex geomorphic setting anthropogenic impacts. An abrupt mid-1700s may be related lateral spreading water-saturated sediments during an earthquake Rose Canyon fault, support new palaeoseismic sea-level records region.