The Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda: Use of a novel biological indicator and historical photographs for measuring local sea-level rise

• Philippe M. Rouja ^[1] ; Craig W. Schneider ^[2] ; Dominique Rissolo ^[3] ; Steve M. Blasco ^[4] ; Vid Petrovic ; Eric Lo ^[3] ; Mandellas A. Lightbourne ^[4] ; Falko Kuester ^[3]
  1. [1] Government of Bermuda, Bermuda
  2. [2] Trinity College, USA
  3. [3] University of California San Diego, USA
  4. [4] Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, Bermuda

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• Localización: International journal of maritime history, ISSN 0843-8714, Vol. 34, Nº. 4, 2022, págs. 634-657
• Idioma: inglés
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  • The authors explore a novel interdisciplinary approach to researching, collecting and communicating local site-specific data on recent sea-level rise using persistent black-zone biotic levels evident on historical coastal stone structures by a stable community of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. Photographs taken at the Dockyard in 1870, 2007 and 2017 show an upward shift in this living cyanobacterial community. A spatio-temporal digital twin computed from historical and contemporary photo assets was created to test the viability of these black-zone lines as a proxy for sea-level-rise measurements in Bermuda. Black-zone cyanobacteria are highly sensitive to sea-level rise and, over long timescales, comparative imagery of black zones could present a proper indicator of average sea-level rise.