Sea-level and environmental changes since the last interglacial in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia: an overview
Quaternary International
By: Allan R. Chivas, Adriana Garcı́a, Sander van der Kaars, Martine Couapel, Sabine Holt, Jessica M. Reeves, David J. Wheeler, Adam D. Switzer, Colin V. Murray-Wallace, Debabrata Banerjee, David M. Price, Sue X. Wang, Grant Pearson, N. Terry Edgar, Luc Beaufort, Patrick de Deckker, Ewan Lawson, and C. Blaine Cecil
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Abstract
The Gulf of Carpentaria is an epicontinental sea (maximum depth 70 m) between Australia and New Guinea, bordered to the east by Torres Strait (currently 12 m deep) and to the west by the Arafura Sill (53 m below present sea level). Throughout the Quaternary, during times of low sea-level, the Gulf was separated from the open waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, forming Lake Carpentaria, an isolation basin, perched above contemporaneous sea-level with outlet channels to the Arafura Sea. A preliminary interpretation is presented of the palaeoenvironments recorded in six sediment cores collected by the IMAGES program in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The longest core (approx. 15 m) spans the past 130 ka and includes a record of sea-level/lake-level changes, with particular complexity between 80 and 40 ka when sea-level repeatedly breached and withdrew from Gulf/Lake Carpentaria. Evidence from biotic remains (foraminifers, ostracods, pollen), sedimentology and geochemistry clearly identifies a final marine transgression at about 9.7 ka (radiocarbon years). Before this transgression, Lake Carpentaria was surrounded by grassland, was near full, and may have had a surface area approaching 600 km×300 km and a depth of about 15 m. The earlier rise in sea-level which accompanied the Marine Isotopic Stage 6/5 transgression at about 130 ka is constrained by sedimentological and biotic evidence and dated by optical- and thermoluminescence and amino acid racemisation methods.
Suggested Citation
Chivas, A.R., Garcı́a, A., van der Kaars, S., Couapel, M., Holt, S., Reeves, J.M., Wheeler, D.J., Switzer, A.D., Murray-Wallace, C.V., Banerjee, D., Price, D., Wang, S.X., Pearson, G., Edgar, N.T., Beaufort, L., de Deckker, P., Lawson, E., and Cecil, C.B., 2001, Sea-level and environmental changes since the last interglacial in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia: an overview: Quaternary International, v. 83-85, no. 11, p. 19-46, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1040-6182(01)00029-5.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Sea-level and environmental changes since the last interglacial in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia: an overview |
| Series title | Quaternary International |
| DOI | 10.1016/S1040-6182(01)00029-5 |
| Volume | 83-85 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Year Published | 2001 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Contributing office(s) | Coastal and Marine Geology Program |
| Description | 28 p. |
| Larger Work Type | Article |
| Larger Work Subtype | Journal Article |
| Larger Work Title | Quaternary International |
| First page | 19 |
| Last page | 46 |
| Country | Australia |
| Other Geospatial | Gulf Of Carpentaria |