The model simulation uses a viscosity structure of 5 × 10²⁰ Pa s viscosity in the upper mantle, 5 × 10²¹ Pa s viscosity in the lower mantle, and an elastic lithospheric thickness of 96 km. a, Snapshot of sea level at 3.244 Ma (grey vertical line in b) assuming a GMSL curve based on the LR04 benthic record¹⁰. The colour scale is chosen to diverge around the GMSL value of 13 m. The red square marks the position of Coves d’Artà. The figure was produced using Matlab 2015b and the m_map plotting package (https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~rich/map.html). b, Local sea level at Coves d’Artà based on Rohling et al.² (blue), de Boer et al.⁴ (yellow), and the LR04 benthic record¹⁰ (red). Respective GMSL curves are shown in black and mostly coincide with local sea level at Coves d’Artà (note that for the estimates based on Rohling et al.² the black GMSL curve is mostly behind the local sea-level curve in blue). Sea level is relative to the beginning of this run (4.9 Ma).