AN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF NORTHEASTERN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA FROM 250,000 TO 500,000 YEARS BP BASED ON THE ODP 820 MARINE CORE

The ODP 820 marine core has provided a continuous, though generalized record of vegetation, burning and climatic change for the humid tropics of northeastern Australia over the last 1.5 million years (Kershaw et al., 1993). A more detailed pollen and charcoal analysis has been undertaken for the last 250,000 years (oxygen isotope stages 8 to 1) (Moss, 1999, Moss and Kershaw, 2000) and compared with an equally detailed oxygen isotope record from the core. The palynological record provides evidence of cyclical environmental changes linked to Milankovitch periodicities, as well as 3 profound alterations in vegetation and burning linked to non-cyclical alterations (at 170,000 years BP, 135,000 to 130,000 years BP and 45,000 years BP). This refined analysis of the ODP 820 core is in the process of being extended from 250,000 to 500,000 years (oxygen isotope stages 8 to 13) in order to provide a firmer basis for explanation of the late Quaternary events in relation to regional tectonics and possibly associated changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns in the west Pacific.

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