The Tropical West Pacific is an understudied region in environmental and archaeological studies when compared to continental regions. The unique geologies, climate systems, and ecological dynamics in the Tropical West Pacific greatly limit the transferrability of palaeoenvironmental proxies established from studies outside of this region. To address this gap, we present a ~5600 yr multi-proxy record of environmental change fro...

The oxygen isotopic composition of Stenomelania gastropod shells was investigated to reconstruct Holocene palaeoclimate change at Lake Kutubu in the southern highlands of Papua New Guinea. Oxygen isotope (δ 18 O) values recorded in aquatic gastropod shells change according to ambient water δ 18 O values and temperature. The gastropod shells appear to form in oxygen isotopic equilibrium with the surrounding water and record a s...

An important challenge for conservation science is to detect declines in intraspecific diversity so that management action can be guided towards populations or species at risk. The lifespan of Australian lungfish ( Neoceratodus forsteri ) exceeds 80 years, and human impacts on breeding habitat over the last half century may have impeded recruitment, leaving populations dominated by old postreproductive individuals, potentially...

Sediment cores were retrieved from Lake Kutubu, the largest upland lake in Papua New Guinea, to assess palaeoenvironmental baselines. Two prominent tephra layers were encountered within the cores. Using a combination of core stratigraphy, sediment properties and geochemical characterization (electron microprobe and laser ablation inductively coupled‐plasma mass spectrometry techniques) we were able to correlate these tephras w...

Aim To reconstruct ecological changes from the fossil record of a unique wetland on the tropical oceanic island of Tahiti, between 44.5 and 38 cal. kyr bp . Location Vaifanaura'amo'ora, Tamanu Plateau, Punaru'u Valley, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia (17°38′S, 149°32′50″E). Methods Fossil pollen, spores, seeds, diatoms and invertebrates were examined from a 3.7 m core consisting of Pleistocene‐aged algal sediment ove...

In a sediment core collected from an estuary in a rapidly urbanizing region in South East Queensland, Australia, we used multiple geochemical tracers to understand the provenance, form, and rate of accumulating organic matter (OM) focusing on the application of two tools often used in studies of soil OM: solid‐state 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and interpretation of radiocarbon ( 14 C) data by modeling th...

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...