Last interglacial (MIS 5e) sea-level proxies in southeastern SouthAmerica

Abstract. Coastal southeast South America is one of the classic locations where there are robust, spatially extensive records of past high sea level. Sea-level proxies interpreted as being Last Interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage – MIS 5e) exist along the length of the Uruguayan and Argentinian coast, with exceptional preservation especially in Patagonia. Many coastal deposits are correlated to MIS 5e solely because they form the next highest terrace level above the Holocene highstand; however, dating control exists for some landforms from amino acid racemization, U/Th (on molluscs), electron spin resonance (ESR), and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. As part of the World Atlas of Last Interglacial Shorelines (WALIS) database, we have documented a total of 60 MIS 5 proxies attributed with various degrees of precision to MIS 5e. Among these, 48 are sea-level indicators, and 11 are marine limiting indicators (sea level above the elevation of the indicator), and 1 is terrestrial limiting (sea level below the elevation of the indicator). Limitations on the precision and accuracy of chronological controls and elevation measurements means that most of these indicators are considered to be low quality. The database is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3991597 (Gowan et al., 2020).