Late Quaternary extraglacial cold-climate deposits in low and mid-altitude Tasmania and their climatic implications
RIS ID
73240
Abstract
Many Tasmanian deposits previously described as ‘periglacial’ have been described in more detail, re-interpreted and dated. We suggest that ‘periglacial’ has little meaning when applied locally and the term ‘relict cold-climate deposits’ is more appropriate. In this paper we examine the origin and age of relict cold-climate slope deposits, fan alluvium and aeolian sediments in Tasmania, and infer the conditions under which they accumulated.
Fan alluvium dating from the penultimate Glacial (OIS 6) and capped by a prominent palaeosol deduced to date to the Last Interglacial (OIS 5e) is present at Woodstock, south of Hobart. Many fan deposits formed before 40 ka or in a period c. 30–23 ka; only a few deposits date to the Last Glacial Maximum in Tasmania, which is defined as spanning the period 23.5–17.5 ka.
Slope deposits indicate widespread instability down to present-day sea level throughout the Last Glacial, probably as a result of freeze–thaw in a sparsely vegetated landscape. Layered fine gravel and coarse sand colluvial deposits resembling grèzes litées, produced both by dry deposition and by the action of water, are locally common where jointed siltstone bedrock outcrops. These deposits occur from altitudes of 500 m to near sea level and also in caves and must have formed under sparse vegetation cover, probably by freeze–thaw in extremely dry conditions. They have been radiocarbon dated from 35 to 17.5 cal. ka.
Relict dunes and sandsheets are widespread at the margin of the Bassian Plain that once provided a land bridge between Tasmania and the mainland. They are also found in western Tasmania and in areas of inland southern Tasmania that now support wet eucalypt forest and rainforest and receive mean annual rainfall > 1500 mm. In the south they have been dated > 87.5–19 ka and attest to a long period of semi-arid climate in an area extending well to the west and south of the present semiarid zone.
We deduce that during most of the Last Glacial anticyclones dominated Tasmania's climate and rain-bearing depressions generally passed south of the land mass. However in the east prominent palaeosols in aeolian deposits, dated between 26.4 ka and 16 ka at different locations, and palaeosols with morphology indicating formation under humid conditions, indicate periods of wetter climate in eastern Tasmania during or close to the LGM, deduced to be the result of easterlies associated with near-coastal depressions in the western Tasman Sea. Such easterlies may also be responsible for short Last Glacial wet periods noted at mainland coastal sites.
A plot of ages of all dated deposits reveals an increase of erosion and deposition between 35 and 20 ka, and greater prevalence of aeolian deposits in the 35–15 ka period than earlier in the Last Glacial. There are two possible explanations for this pattern: (1) that aeolian activity increased as the result of climatic effects (e.g. increased windiness); or (2) that shrubland biomass increased after the megafauna were hunted to extinction following human arrival c. 40 ka, causing increased fire frequency, and in the cold dry climate of the late Last Glacial such fires caused increased erosion and increased aeolian accumulation.
Publication Details
McIntosh, P. D., Eberhard, R., Slee, A., Moss, P., Price, D. M., Donaldson, P., Doyle, R. & Martins, J. (2012). Late Quaternary extraglacial cold-climate deposits in low and mid-altitude Tasmania and their climatic implications. Geomorphology, 179 21-39.