Sea level higher than present 3500 years ago on the northern main Hawaiian Islands

New data from an emerged coastal bench and associated fossil beach on Kapapa Island (Oahu), Hawaii, preserve a detailed history of middle to late Holocene sea level. These include 29 new calibrated radiocarbon ages and elevations indicating mean sea level reached a maximum position of 2.00 +/- 0.35 m ca. 3500 yr B.P. These results correlate with additional evidence from Hawaii and other Pacific islands and provide constraints on Oahu's long-term uplift rate (0.03-0.07 mm/yr), previously based solely on Pleistocene age shorelines. Our sea-level reconstruction is consistent with geophysical model predictions of Earth's geoid response to the last deglaciation and with observations of increased Antarctic ice volume during the late Holocene.