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Continental Aridification and the Vanishing of Australia's Megalakes 2011, 167-170 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Online University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive) Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health 2011 Continental aridification and the anishingv of Australia's megalakes Timothy J. Cohen University of Wollongong, [email protected] Gerald C. Nanson University of Wollongong, [email protected] John D. Jansen University of Glasgow, [email protected] B. G. Jones University of Wollongong, [email protected] Zenobia Jacobs University of Wollongong, [email protected] See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers Part of the Life Sciences Commons, Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Cohen, Timothy J.; Nanson, Gerald C.; Jansen, John D.; Jones, B. G.; Jacobs, Zenobia; Treble, P; Price, David M.; May, Jan-Hendrik; Smith, A; Ayliffe, Linda K.; and Hellstrom, John C.: Continental aridification and the vanishing of Australia's megalakes 2011, 167-170. https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers/1090 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Continental aridification and the anishingv of Australia's megalakes Abstract The nature of the Australian climate at about the time of rapid megafaunal extinctions and humans arriving in Australia is poorly understood and is an important element in the contentious debate as to whether humans or climate caused the extinctions. Here we present a new paleoshoreline chronology that extends over the past 100 k.y. for Lake Mega-Frome, the coalescence of Lakes Frome, Blanche, Callabonna and Gregory, in the southern latitudes of central Australia. We show that Lake Mega-Frome was connected for the last time to adjacent Lake Eyre at 50-47 ka, forming the largest remaining interconnected system of paleolakes on the Australian continent. The final disconnection and a progressive drop in the level of Lake Mega-Frome represents a major climate shift to aridification that coincided with the arrival of humans and the demise of the megafauna. The supply of moisture to the Australian continent at various times in the Quaternary has commonly been ascribed to an enhanced monsoon. This study, in combination with other paleoclimate data, provides reliable evidence for periods of enhanced tropical and enhanced Southern Ocean sources of water filling these lakes at different times during the last full glacial cycle. © 2011 Geological Society of America. Keywords megalakes, vanishing, continental, aridification, australia, GeoQUEST, CAS Disciplines Life Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Cohen, TJ, Nanson, GC, Jansen, J, Jones, BG, Jacobs, Z, Treble, P, Price, DM, May, J, Smith, A, Ayliffe, LK & Hellstrom, JC, Continental aridification and the anishingv of Australia's megalakes, Geology, 39(2), 2011, p 167-170. Authors Timothy J. Cohen, Gerald C. Nanson, John D. Jansen, B. G. Jones, Zenobia Jacobs, P Treble, David M. Price, Jan-Hendrik May, A Smith, Linda K. Ayliffe, and John C. Hellstrom This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers/1090 Downloaded from geology.gsapubs.org on February 6, 2011 Geology Continental aridification and the vanishing of Australia's megalakes Tim J. Cohen, Gerald C. Nanson, John D. Jansen, Brian G. Jones, Zenobia Jacobs, Pauline Treble, David M. Price, Jan-Hendrik May, Andrew M. Smith, Linda K. Ayliffe and John C. Hellstrom Geology 2011;39;167-170 doi: 10.1130/G31518.1 Email alerting services click www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts to receive free e-mail alerts when new articles cite this article Subscribe click www.gsapubs.org/subscriptions/ to subscribe to Geology Permission request click http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/copyrt.htm#gsa to contact GSA Copyright not claimed on content prepared wholly by U.S. government employees within scope of their employment. Individual scientists are hereby granted permission, without fees or further requests to GSA, to use a single figure, a single table, and/or a brief paragraph of text in subsequent works and to make unlimited copies of items in GSA's journals for noncommercial use in classrooms to further education and science. This file may not be posted to any Web site, but authors may post the abstracts only of their articles on their own or their organization's Web site providing the posting includes a reference to the article's full citation. GSA provides this and other forums for the presentation of diverse opinions and positions by scientists worldwide, regardless of their race, citizenship, gender, religion, or political viewpoint. Opinions presented in this publication do not reflect official positions of the Society. Notes © 2011 Geological Society of America Downloaded from geology.gsapubs.org on February 6, 2011 Continental aridifi cation and the vanishing of Australia’s megalakes Tim J. Cohen1,2, Gerald C. Nanson2, John D. Jansen3, Brian G. Jones2, Zenobia Jacobs2, Pauline Treble4, David M. Price2, Jan-Hendrik May2, Andrew M. Smith4, Linda K. Ayliffe5, and John C. Hellstrom6 1Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia 2GeoQuEST Research Centre–School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia 3School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK 4Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Lucas Heights, NSW 2234, Australia 5Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia 6School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia ABSTRACT The nature of the Australian climate at about the time of rapid megafaunal extinctions eek SSill LakLakeeeG GGregoryregory reek and humans arriving in Australia is poorly understood and is an important element in the ki C cki Creek S contentious debate as to whether humans or climate caused the extinctions. Here we present a elec LakeLakL e BlancheB ancheh 29°S 29° new paleoshoreline chronology that extends over the past 100 k.y. for Lake Mega-Frome, the StrzStrzele coalescence of Lakes Frome, Blanche, Callabonna and Gregory, in the southern latitudes of 0 500 km central Australia. We show that Lake Mega-Frome was connected for the last time to adjacent Lake Eyre at 50–47 ka, forming the largest remaining interconnected system of paleolakes on 2 70 6 C 3 the Australian continent. The fi nal disconnection and a progressive drop in the level of Lake 3 50 LakeLkLake CCallabonnaabbonnanana Mega-Frome represents a major climate shift to aridifi cation that coincided with the arrival of 4 30 humans and the demise of the megafauna. The supply of moisture to the Australian continent (km ) Volume 2 LC 10 at various times in the Quaternary has commonly been ascribed to an enhanced monsoon. S Lake area (10 km ) 0 5 10 15 0° This study, in combination with other paleoclimate data, provides reliable evidence for peri- 30° 30°S Shoreline elevation (m) SC ods of enhanced tropical and enhanced Southern Ocean sources of water fi lling these lakes at different times during the last full glacial cycle. LF INTRODUCTION 60–51 ka, when humans fi rst arrived in Austra- Two dominant synoptic conditions drive pre- lia (Roberts et al., 1994; Bowler et al., 2003). Flinders Ranges LakeLakke FromeFromome cipitation on the Australian continent today: Paleolake records provide a direct measure the Indo-Australian summer monsoon, and the of the moisture balance in the landscape and 1 fronts and depressions associated with the mid- thus provide valuable data about environmen- A 2 latitude westerlies. The monsoon, modulated tal change and climatic forcing over the late KI 14140140°E40 °E by the El Niño−Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Quaternary (Magee et al., 2004). We adopt a B directly contributes runoff to northern Austra- robust approach to unravelling the paleohy- Figure 1. A: Locations of sites in Australia. lia by feeding the major northern tributaries of drology of the Lake Mega-Frome-Eyre system 1—Lake Eyre Basin; 2—Murray Darling Ba- Australia’s largest endoreic drainage system, by linking lake-fl oor sedimentary sequences to sin; solid triangle—Mairs Cave (32°S); open triangle—Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte 6 2 the Lake Eyre basin (1.2 × 10 km ; Fig. 1). paleoshoreline chronology bolstered by inde- (37°S); KI—Kelly Hill Caves on Kangaroo Is- While tropically derived moisture episodically pendent environmental proxies from beyond land, 36°S. B: Shuttle Radar Topography Mis- fi lls Lake Eyre via Cooper Creek and the Dia- the lakes. Paleoshorelines provide the best, and sion–derived digital elevation model (DEM) of mantina River, fl oodwaters can also travel south only, direct measure of paleolake levels, and Lake Mega-Frome; current playa is shaded at 1 m contour. Black outline denotes 15 m via Strzelecki Creek (a distributary of Coo- here we use optically stimulated luminescence contour and/or shoreline. LF—Lake Frome per Creek) to the playa lakes surrounding the (OSL) and thermoluminescence (TL) ages (ka) transect, SC—Salt Creek transect, LC—Lake eastern and northern margins of the Flinders from paleoshoreline deposits (30°S), along Callabonna transect. Open circles—core Ranges in South Australia (Fig. 1). These playas with 14C ages (calibrated, cal., kyr B.P.) from locations; Sill—location of Warrawoocara (Frome, Callabonna, Blanche, and Gregory), in situ freshwater molluscs. We supplement sill. C: Lake Mega-Frome area-volume curve (DEM analysis in Item DR4; see footnote 1). which have combined in the past at 5 ± 2 m these data with existing and new independent depth to form Lake Mega-Frome, have received terrestrial proxies, i.e., age measurements of water from tropically derived fl oodwaters, from speleothem growth from three cave sites in temperate westerlies, or from some combina- a north-south transect, from winter rainfall− SRTM V2) along with previously published tion of these.
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