The hope is that further analysis will reveal just how much the sea level declined during this 19-million-year-old sequence - and thus, how much land-based ice had to form in order for the water to drop that much. It might have involved the growth of ice sheets on say, East Antarctica, or possibly the combination of ice on Antarctica and Greenland.
Such information will help to refine climate models that predict the future. If sea-level rise begins to accelerate in staccato fashion, for example, scientists would like to know if that is because of human influence, or if the seas have behaved that way in the past.