Rufin-Soler, C.; Mörner, N.-A.; Laborel, J., and Collina-Girard, J., 2014. Submarine morphology in the Maldives and Holocene sea-level rise.

An underwater survey of the Maldives archipelago has documented various types of erosion features in the Pleistocene reef rock record. Among these were several littoral notches, whose equivalent is found in many other parts of the world. The morphology of the notches at −24 and −35 m suggests that the decelerations of the Holocene transgression were true standstills, or episodes of very slow rise, followed by episodes of rapid rise of the water level. Some deeper water notches were also surveyed. Many caves and cavities in the Pleistocene reef rock, although excavated during low glacial levels, appear to have also been reworked by marine erosion during the Holocene rise. Deep dissection of old cavities by bioerosive action leads to frail, hooplike formations, unable to stand their own weight on dry land. Despite the difficulty of dating such formations as notches, their correspondence with similar features observed in other regions is striking.