Bayhead delta succession as a stratigraphic marker of sea‐level changes during the early to late Holocene – the Nakdong valley of south‐eastern Korea

Bayhead deltas form at the interface between fluvial and estuarine systems. As such, they are sensitive to processes operating in both the fluvial catchment and the marine realm, including past relative sea‐level changes. The Nakdong valley is a small and confined incised valley containing a bayhead delta that provides a record of fluvial sediment input and accommodation changes. Based on a facies analysis that included 833 sediment textures and 118 optically stimulated luminescence and radiocarbon ages within five cores up to 70 m long, this study reconstructed the development of a fully filled bayhead delta in response to relative sea‐level changes through the early to late Holocene. Sixteen facies are defined and grouped into eight facies associations: alluvial plain; fluvial channel and floodplain; oxidized fluvial channel; tidal flat; tidal bar; central basin and bayhead prodelta; bayhead delta front; and bayhead delta plain. The sequence stratigraphy of the Nakdong valley fill can be divided into three systems tracts: a lowstand systems tract, a transgressive systems tract and a highstand systems tract. Overall sedimentary analyses suggest six depositional stages corresponding to variations between sediment inputs and sea‐level rise of the developing bayhead delta in the Nakdong valley. The depositional model tracks relative sea‐level rise in the Nakdong valley after 12 ka during the early to late Holocene. These analyses on the Nakdong bayhead delta succession illustrate the balance between sediment inputs and periods of accelerating and decelerating relative sea‐level rise during the Holocene. The architecture of the valley fill also records two abrupt disequilibrium events from 9 to 8 ka and 5 to 3 ka, likely resulting from rapid sea‐level rise during the deglacial outburst flooding of the early Holocene and decreased sediment inputs during regional climatic changes associated with the middle Holocene, respectively.