ABSTRACT
This chapter explains coastal terraces generated by sea-level change and tectonic uplift. The review of emerged coastal terraces has focused on different processes, acting on different time scales. If each interglacial sea level returned to within a few meters of present level, flights of terraces represent the cumulative tectonic uplift during the oscillatory glacial cycles. Successive uplift increments based on 20 000 year intervals between dated coral-reef terraces lend support to the hypothesis that tectonic uplift on this time scale is also relatively constant, with the uplift rates of successive 20 000 year intervals varying by a factor of only 2 or 3. An excellent predictive model of the age of Middle Pleistocene and older terraces can be made if one of the lowest terraces in the sequence can be proved to be of last interglacial age. Cumulative effects of such uplift, which are usually associated with major earthquakes, are generally positive, although interseismic reversals are known.
