Exploring the Timing, Amplitudes, and Causes of Neogene Global Sea-Level Fluctuations: the Ocean Drilling Program's Inaugural Expedition to the New Jersey Continental Shelf

Sea-level changes have direct consequences for mankind; they profoundly affect shallow-water deposition and erosion, nearshore ecosystems, particle and nutrient transfer to the deep-sea, and, at time scales of decades to centuries, the evolution of coastal civilization. One of the long-term goals of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) is to decipher the timing, amplitudes and causal mechanisms of sea-level change by conducting continental margin transects worldwide. By "stacking" multiple transects from diverse margin environments, the influences of tectonism, sediment supply and other local effects can be eliminated to decipher the eustatic signal.