Isostasy in the context of "Lithospheric flexure"

Tectonic uplift is the geologic uplift of Earth's surface that is attributed to plate tectonics. While isostatic response is important, an increase in the mean elevation of a region can only occur in response to tectonic processes of crustal thickening (such as mountain building events), changes in the density distribution of the crust and underlying mantle, and flexural support due to the bending of rigid lithosphere.

Tectonic uplift results in denudation (processes that wear away the earth's surface) by raising buried rocks closer to the surface. This process can redistribute large loads from an elevated region to a topographically lower area as well – thus promoting an isostatic response in the region of denudation (which can cause local bedrock uplift). The timing, magnitude, and rate of denudation can be estimated by geologists using pressure-temperature studies.

An emergent coastline is a stretch along the coast that has been exposed by the sea by a relative fall in sea levels by either isostasy or eustasy.

Emergent coastline are the opposite of submergent coastlines, which have experienced a relative rise in sea levels.

Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subsidence creates a regional depression that provides accommodation space for accumulation of sediments. Over millions or tens or hundreds of millions of years the deposition of sediment, primarily gravity-driven transportation of water-borne eroded material, acts to fill the depression. As the sediments are buried, they are subject to increasing pressure and begin the processes of compaction and lithification that transform them into sedimentary rock.

Sedimentary basins are created by deformation of Earth's lithosphere in diverse geological settings, usually as a result of plate tectonic activity. Mechanisms of crustal deformation that lead to subsidence and sedimentary basin formation include the thinning of underlying crust; depression of the crust by sedimentary, tectonic or volcanic loading; or changes in the thickness or density of underlying or adjacent lithosphere. Once the process of basin formation has begun, the weight of the sediments being deposited in the basin adds a further load on the underlying crust that accentuates subsidence and thus amplifies basin development as a result of isostasy.

The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was a project that aimed to carry out a survey across the Indian subcontinent with scientific precision. It was begun in 1802 by the British infantry officer William Lambton, under the auspices of the East India Company. Under the leadership of his successor, George Everest, the project was made the responsibility of the Survey of India. Everest was succeeded by Andrew Scott Waugh, and after 1861, the project was led by James Walker, who oversaw its completion in 1871.

Among the many accomplishments of the Survey were the demarcation of the British territories in the subcontinent and the measurement of the height of the Himalayan giants: Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. The Survey had an enormous scientific impact as well. It was responsible for one of the first accurate measurements of a section of an arc of longitude, and for measurements of the geodesic anomaly, which led to the development of the theories of isostasy.

A marine transgression is a geologic event where sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, resulting in flooding. Transgressions can be caused by the land sinking or by the ocean basins filling with water or decreasing in capacity. Transgressions and regressions may be caused by tectonic events like orogenies, severe climate change such as ice ages or isostatic adjustments following removal of ice or sediment load.

During the Cretaceous, seafloor spreading created a relatively shallow Atlantic basin at the expense of a deeper Pacific basin. That reduced the world's ocean basin capacity and caused a rise in sea level worldwide. As a result of the sea level rise, the oceans transgressed completely across the central portion of North America and created the Western Interior Seaway from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.

Sequence stratigraphy is a form of stratigraphy that attempts to discern and understand historic geology through time by subdividing and linking sedimentary deposits into unconformity bounded units on a variety of scales. The essence of the method is mapping of strata based on identification of surfaces which are assumed to represent time lines (e.g. subaerial unconformities, maximum flooding surfaces), thereby placing stratigraphy in chronostratigraphic framework allowing understanding of the evolution of the Earth's surface in a particular region through time. Sequence stratigraphy is a useful alternative to a purely lithostratigraphic approach, which emphasizes solely based on the compositional similarity of the lithology of rock units rather than time significance. Unconformities are particularly important in understanding geologic history because they represent erosional surfaces where there is a clear gap in the record. Conversely within a sequence the geologic record should be relatively continuous and complete record that is genetically related.

Stratigraphers explain sequence boundaries and stratigraphic units primarily in terms of changes in relative sea level (the combination of global changes in eustatic sea level and regional subsidence caused by tectonic subsidence, thermal subsidence and load-induced subsidence as the weight of accumulated sediment and water cause isostatic subsidence as a sedimentary basin is filled). The net changes resulting from these vertical forces increases or reduces accommodation space for sediments to accumulate in a sedimentary basin. A secondary influence is the rate of sediment supply to the basin which determines the rate at which that space is filled.