The Holocene history of Australia's climate is surprisingly poorly understood. This is, in part, because of the relatively weak forcing of Holocene climate versus that of the late Pleistocene. However, it is commonly suggested that eastern Australia dried during the mid‐ to late‐Holocene and that this was in response to increased activity in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in particular, the intensification of the El...

This research documents the paleoenvironmental evolution of Eighteen Mile Swamp on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), Australia, from oscillating coastal lagoon into stable freshwater swamp over the last ca. 1600 years. We analyzed multiple sediment cores via physical description, acid sulfate soil assays, particle size analysis, diatom and pollen assemblages, photosynthetic pigment content, and Itrax XRF spectrometry, alo...

The Wellington Caves were the first Australian locality from which Europeans collected and analysed vertebrate fossils. Within this system, Cathedral Cave contains Australia's stratigraphically deepest sequence of fossil‐bearing infill sediments, the age and depositional history of which has been poorly understood. Here we present results from a new excavation of the upper 4.2 m of the deposit, reanalysing the stratigraphy, pe...

Aim To assess whether climate directly influences aquatic ecosystem dynamics in the temperate landscape of Tasmania or whether the effects of long‐term climatic change are mediated through the terrestrial environment (indirect climate influence). Location Paddy's Lake is located at 1065 m a.s.l. in temperate north‐west Tasmania, a continental island south‐east of mainland Australia (41°15–43°25′ S; 145°00–148°15′ E). Methods W...

Aim To test competing hypotheses about the timing and extent of Holocene landscape opening using pollen‐based quantitative land‐cover estimates. Location Dove Lake, Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Australia. Methods Fossil pollen data were incorporated into pollen dispersal models and corrected for differences in pollen productivity among key plant taxa. Mechanistic models ( REVEALS —Regional Estimates of VE getation...

Palynomorphs from the ODP Site 820 marine core have provided a detailed record of terrestrial environmental responses to glacial–interglacial forcing over the last 250 000 years in the Australian Wet Tropics. The development of an accurate geochronological framework for this key sequence has proved challenging. Consequently, different dominant forcing mechanism(s) have been proposed to drive environmental change in the low lat...

A previous assessment of radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates from alluvial units in southeastern Australia revealed a gap in the geochronological record that coincides with the Holocene climatic optimum. This gap in the alluvial record can be further refined using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). The chronology of Holocene river terraces on Widden Brook, a sandy alluvial stream in southeastern Australia, was established using 14...