Massey, Anthony C.Gehrels, W. RolandCharman, Dan J.Milne, Glenn A.Peltier, W.R.Selby, Katherine A.Lambeck, Kurt2015-12-070267-8179http://hdl.handle.net/1885/22757Previous sea-level studies suggest that southwest Britain has the fastest subsiding coastline in the United Kingdom, but tide-gauge data, GPS and gravity measurements and geophysical models show little evidence of anomalous subsidence in this region. In this paper we present 15 new sea-level index points from four coastal barrier systems in south Devon. Eight are from compaction-free basal sediments and others were corrected for autocompaction. Our data suggest that relative sea level along the south Devon coastline has risen by 21 ± 4 m during the past 9000 years. Sea-level rise slowed during the middle and late Holocene and a rise of 8 ± 1 m has occurred since ca. 7000 cal. yr BP. Anomalous ages for many rejected points are attributed to sediment reworking during barrier transgression. The relative sea-level history during the early and middle Holocene shows a good fit with geophysical model predictions, but the geological and modelled data diverge in the later Holocene. Unlike the geophysical models, sea-level index points cannot differentiate between late Holocene relative sea-level histories of south Devon and southwest Cornwall. It is suggested that this discrepancy can be resolved by obtaining additional high-quality sea-level index points covering the past 4000 years.Keywords: coast; foraminifera; Holocene; isostasy; modeling; Postglacial; sea level change; transgression; Devon; England; Eurasia; Europe; United Kingdom; Western Europe; Foraminifera England; Foraminifera; Holocene; Isostasy; Sea-level change200810.1002/jqs.11492015-12-07