Research Article| May 01, 2010 Climatic and vegetation control on sediment dynamics during the last glacial cycle A. Dosseto; A. Dosseto * 1GEMOC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia *Current address: GeoQuEST Centre, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia; E-mail: tonyd@uow.edu.au. Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar P.P. Hesse; P.P. Hesse 2Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar K. Maher; K. Maher 3Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar K. Fryirs; K. Fryirs 2Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar S. Turner S. Turner 1GEMOC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information A. Dosseto * 1GEMOC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia P.P. Hesse 2Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia K. Maher 3Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA K. Fryirs 2Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia S. Turner 1GEMOC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia *Current address: GeoQuEST Centre, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia; E-mail: tonyd@uow.edu.au. Publisher: Geological Society of America Received: 19 Sep 2009 Revision Received: 16 Nov 2009 Accepted: 17 Nov 2009 First Online: 09 Mar 2017 Online ISSN: 1943-2682 Print ISSN: 0091-7613 © 2010 Geological Society of America Geology (2010) 38 (5): 395–398. https://doi.org/10.1130/G30708.1 Article history Received: 19 Sep 2009 Revision Received: 16 Nov 2009 Accepted: 17 Nov 2009 First Online: 09 Mar 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation A. Dosseto, P.P. Hesse, K. Maher, K. Fryirs, S. Turner; Climatic and vegetation control on sediment dynamics during the last glacial cycle. Geology 2010;; 38 (5): 395–398. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/G30708.1 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyGeology Search Advanced Search Abstract As climate is changing rapidly, there is an increasing need to understand how water and soil resources respond to climate change. Soil and sediment dynamics are sensitive to several external factors such as climate, vegetation type and distribution, human activity, and tectonic activity. However, the relationship between erosion and changes in these factors is difficult to constrain with current available approaches. Here we show that uranium isotopes in sediments from river paleochannels can be used to reconstruct variations in the residence time of sediments in a catchment over the past 100 k.y. We find that sediment residence times increase by an order of magnitude during interglacials compared to glacial periods. This is interpreted as a change in sediment stores in the landscape that are tapped by catchment erosion: young, upland soils during glacial periods, reworking of old alluvial sediments during interglacials. A direct correlation is found between the sediment residence time and climatic parameters (sea-surface temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide content, and paleorainfall estimates), suggesting that during a glacial cycle, sediment dynamics closely follow variations in climate. However, this relationship is not simple because there is no correlation between sediment residence time and paleodischarge estimates. Because sediment residence time variations correlate with changes in vegetation inferred from pollen data, it is hypothesized that the influence of climate on erosion over a glacial cycle may be indirect, and operates via the influence of climate on the type of plant ecosystems within a catchment. If verified elsewhere, this conclusion would emphasize the important role of biology in the physical evolution of Earth's surface, here observed over a 100 k.y. time scale. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

10.1130/g30708.1

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Paleoclimate studies and natural-resource management in the Murray-Darling Basin II: unravelling human impacts and climate variability

Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (2013)

Keely Mills Peter Gell Joëlle Gergis Patrick J. Baker C. Max Finlayson

The management of the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) has long been contested, and the effects of the recent Millennium drought and subsequent flooding events have generated acute contests over the appropriate allocation of water supplies to agricultural, domestic and environmental uses. This water-availability crisis has driven demand for improved knowledge of climate change trends, cycles of variability, the range of historical climates experienced by natural systems and the ecological health of the system relative to a past benchmark. A considerable volume of research on the past climates of southeastern Australia has been produced over recent decades, but much of this work has focused on longer geological time-scales, and is of low temporal resolution. Less evidence has been generated of recent climate change at the level of resolution that accesses the cycles of change relevant to management. Intra-decadal and near-annual resolution (high-resolution) records do exist and provide evidence of climate change and variability, and of human impact on systems, relevant to natural-resource management. There exist now many research groups using a range of proxy indicators of climate that will rapidly escalate our knowledge of management-relevant, climate change and variability. This review assembles available climate and catchment change research within, and in the vicinity of, the MDB and portrays the research activities that are responding to the knowledge need. It also discusses how paleoclimate scientists may better integrate their pursuits into the resource-management realm to enhance the utility of the science, the effectiveness of the management measures and the outcomes for the end users.

Proxy (statistics)

Natural Resource Management

Paleoclimatology

Anthropocene

Aridification

10.1080/08120099.2013.823463

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Macro-charcoal accumulation in floodplain wetlands: Problems and prospects for reconstruction of fire regimes and environmental conditions

PLoS ONE (2019)

Bradley P. Graves Timothy J. Ralph Paul Hesse Kira Westaway Tsuyoshi Kobayashi

Floodplain wetland ecosystems respond dynamically to flooding, fire and geomorphological processes. We employed a combined geomorphological and environmental proxy approach to assess allochthonous and autochthonous macro-charcoal accumulation in the Macquarie Marshes, Australia, with implications for the reconstruction of fire regimes and environmental conditions in large, open-system wetlands. After accounting for fluvial macro-charcoal flux (1.05 ± 0.32 no. cm-2 a-1), autochthonous macro-charcoal in ~1 m deep sediment profiles spanning ~1.7 ka were highly variable and inconsistent between cores and wetlands (concentrations from 0 to 438 no. cm-3, mean accumulation rates from 0 to 3.86 no. cm-2 a-1). A positive correlation existed between the number of recent fires, satellite-observed ignition points, and macro-charcoal concentrations at the surface of the wetlands. Sedimentology, geochemistry, and carbon stable isotopes (δ13C range -15 to -25 ‰) were similar in all cores from both wetlands and varied little with depth. Application of macro-charcoal and other environmental proxy techniques is inherently difficult in large, dynamic wetland systems due to variations in charcoal sources, sediment and charcoal deposition rates, and taphonomic processes. Major problems facing fire history reconstruction using macro-charcoal records in these wetlands include: (1) spatial and temporal variations in fire activity and ash and charcoal products within the wetlands, (2) variations in allochthonous inputs of charcoal from upstream sources, (3) tendency for geomorphic dynamism to affect flow dispersal and sediment and charcoal accumulation, and (4) propensity for post-depositional modification and/or destruction of macro-charcoal by flooding and taphonomic processes. Recognition of complex fire-climate-hydrology-vegetation interactions is essential. High-resolution, multifaceted approaches with reliable geochronologies are required to assess spatial and temporal patterns of fire and to reconstruct in order to interpret wetland fire regimes.

Charcoal

10.1371/journal.pone.0224011

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Citations (16)