Records of postglacial hydroclimatic variation from the peat-forming environments of the Sydney Region

• Main Author: Martin, Lennard
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: UNSW, Sydney 2017
• Subjects: ITRAX; Peat wetlands; Geochemistry; THPSS; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/58950; https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/421957f7-5d22-47d2-92f1-d276bab83763/download; https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/20108

This study provides a high resolution, well dated multiproxy record of hydroclimatic and environmental change in the Sydney Region of eastern Australia over the last 18,000 years. A lack of moisture-sensitive records from the Australian region has hampered understanding of climate dynamics, especially in the mid-latitude regions between tropical and temperate zones. Significant controls on the Australian climate include heat redistribution from the tropics via ocean currents and teleconnection to the Antarctic moderated by the Southern Hemisphere westerlies. The unique peat forming environments of the Eastern Highlands of Australia are well placed to show a sensitive response to the interplay between these two major climate controls that contribute to overall moisture availability in the region. A meta-analysis of sediment accumulation rates revealed that these environments show a significant response to climatic amelioration around the Late Pleistocene-Holocene boundary with a doubling of accumulation rates after low values during the LGM and postglacial period up to a Holocene average of 5cm/century. Within the Holocene, sediment accumulation rates show an overall upwards trend that is punctuated by a decrease in accumulation rates between 9,000 and 8,000 cal. BP and again at 1,000 cal. BP. The three sites investigated here (Goochs Crater, Hanging Rock Swamp and Queens Swamp) were chosen to be representative of the contemporary variation observed across the moisture-dependent peat forming environments of the Sydney region, determined using a range of palaeoenvironmental proxies with a particular focus on hydroclimatically sensitive indicators (Humification, ITRAX geochemistry), C/N ratios, grainsize and charcoal analysis). Comprehensive AMS radiocarbon (14C) dating was undertaken on multiple organic fractions from the same depth intervals to identify an optimal target for future dating and to quantify the inbuilt age and other sources of error from less suitable fractions, demonstrating plant macrofossils as ...