Engineering of wind farms, development of carbon sequestration projects in shelfal waters, the proliferation of communication cables that connect the world, all of these things suggest that it is time to re-examine what we know about shelf processes both updip-to-downdip and along shoreline, and the influence of shelf processes on erosion and transport of sediments. As climates change, it is the global shelves and shorelines that will be most impacted by that change, getting hit from both the basinward side (ie., hurricanes, storms and sea level) and the landward side (river flows, storm sediment surges, etc.). This talk will examine the super-greenhouse time of Cretaceous-age storm-generated hyperpycnal flows and their interaction with Western Interior Cretaceous seafloor topography to shed light on how changing conditions will impact our global modern shelves. We will discuss observations that challenge us to think beyond our traditional “progradation and retrogradation” models of shoreline change. Insights gained from combined outcrop and subsurface studies and those from physical and numerical modelling will be used to illustrate advances in how we think about shelfal processes and sediment movements, and challenge us to think about the future of global shelves and how they respond to change. We will talk about what has been, what is and what might come and how it can impact the way we engineer our near shore and offshore world.