Quantitative assessment of the oxygen isotope composition of fish otoliths from Lake Mungo, Australia
Quantitative assessment of the oxygen isotope composition of fish otoliths from Lake Mungo, Australia
The Willandra Lakes region is a series of once interconnected and now-dry lake basins in the arid zone of southeastern Australia. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of cultural, archaeological, and geological significance, preserving records of Aboriginal occupation and environmental change stretching back to at least 50 ka. Linking the archaeology with the commensurate palaeoenvironmental information is complicated by the millennial time spans represented by the past hydrological record preserved in the sediment vs. the subdecadal evidence of each archaeological site. Oxygen isotope records across annual growth rings of fish otoliths (ear stones) can elucidate flooding and drying regimes on subannual scales. Otoliths from hearth sites (fireplaces) link lake hydrology with people eating fish on the lakeshore. Oxygen isotopic trends in hearth otoliths from the last glacial maximum (LGM) were previously interpreted in terms of high evaporation under dry conditions. However, this ignored hydrology-driven changes in water δ18O. Here, a mass balance model is constructed to test the effect lake desiccation has on water δ18O and how this compares with the LGM otolith records. Based on this modelling, we suggest that Lake Mungo otolith signatures are better explained by evaporation acting on full lakes rather than by lake drying.
Arid zone, Otoliths, Oxygen isotopes, Quaternary, Willandra Lakes
234-246
Long, Kelsie
5ea10aa5-9f3b-4424-9a2a-9c9f3a084c02
Heslop, David
f32aae36-7f51-40e1-bf7d-54a561369a8d
Rohling, Eelco J.
a2a27ef2-fcce-4c71-907b-e692b5ecc685
July 2021
Long, Kelsie
5ea10aa5-9f3b-4424-9a2a-9c9f3a084c02
Heslop, David
f32aae36-7f51-40e1-bf7d-54a561369a8d
Rohling, Eelco J.
a2a27ef2-fcce-4c71-907b-e692b5ecc685
Long, Kelsie, Heslop, David and Rohling, Eelco J.
(2021)
Quantitative assessment of the oxygen isotope composition of fish otoliths from Lake Mungo, Australia.
Quaternary Research, 102, .
(doi:10.1017/qua.2020.121).
Abstract
The Willandra Lakes region is a series of once interconnected and now-dry lake basins in the arid zone of southeastern Australia. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of cultural, archaeological, and geological significance, preserving records of Aboriginal occupation and environmental change stretching back to at least 50 ka. Linking the archaeology with the commensurate palaeoenvironmental information is complicated by the millennial time spans represented by the past hydrological record preserved in the sediment vs. the subdecadal evidence of each archaeological site. Oxygen isotope records across annual growth rings of fish otoliths (ear stones) can elucidate flooding and drying regimes on subannual scales. Otoliths from hearth sites (fireplaces) link lake hydrology with people eating fish on the lakeshore. Oxygen isotopic trends in hearth otoliths from the last glacial maximum (LGM) were previously interpreted in terms of high evaporation under dry conditions. However, this ignored hydrology-driven changes in water δ18O. Here, a mass balance model is constructed to test the effect lake desiccation has on water δ18O and how this compares with the LGM otolith records. Based on this modelling, we suggest that Lake Mungo otolith signatures are better explained by evaporation acting on full lakes rather than by lake drying.
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Long et al. _Lake Mungo_QR-S-20-00153
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Accepted/In Press date: 1 December 2020
Published date: July 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
We would like to thank the Traditional Tribal Groups of the Willandra Lakes Region and thank the support of the Willandra Lakes Region Aboriginal Advisory Group and guidance set out in their Research Code of Practice. We would like to thank Nicola Stern and Nathan Jankowski for providing comments on the sections related to the archaeology and geology of Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes, and Matthew Jones for providing comments on the modelling aspects of this study. Thanks also to the reviewers and QR Editors who provided insightful comments that greatly improved the final manuscript. This research was supported in part by ARC DP150100487 and ARC DP1092966. Long was supported in part by a postdoctoral fellowship with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. The model code can be found at https://github.com/dave-heslop74/Mungo-model .
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Keywords:
Arid zone, Otoliths, Oxygen isotopes, Quaternary, Willandra Lakes
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 447206
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/447206
ISSN: 0033-5894
PURE UUID: a15036fc-cb94-4447-a46b-9926c359c4af
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Date deposited: 04 Mar 2021 17:46
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:22
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Author:
Kelsie Long
Author:
David Heslop
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