Late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental change in the Australian drylands Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons a, * , Timothy J. Cohen b , Paul P. Hesse c , John Jansen d , Gerald C. Nanson b , Jan-Hendrik May b , Timothy T. Barrows e , David Haberlah f , Alexandra Hilgers g , Tegan Kelly h, i , Joshua Larsen j , Johanna Lomax k , Pauline Treble l a Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany b School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia c Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia d Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK f FEI Australia, Brisbane, Australia g Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany h Geoscience Australia, Canberra, Australia i Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia j Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre, Water Research Laboratory, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia k Department of Geography, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Gießen, Germany l Institute for Environmental Research, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Association, Sydney, Australia article info Article history: Received 24 May 2012 Received in revised form 2 September 2012 Accepted 6 September 2012 Available online xxx Keywords: Aridity Palaeohydrology Desert dunes Playas Australia Australasian integration of ice core, marine and terrestrial records (OZ-INTIMATE) project abstract In this paper we synthesise existing palaeoenvironmental data from the arid and semi-arid interior of the Australian continent for the period 40e0 ka. Moisture is the predominant variable controlling envi- ronmental change in the arid zone. Landscapes in this region respond more noticeably to changes in precipitation than to temperature. Depending on their location, arid zone records broadly respond to tropical monsoon-influenced climate regimes, the temperate latitude westerly systems, or a combination of both. The timing and extent of relatively arid and humid phases vary across the continent, in particular between the westerly wind-controlled temperate latitudes, and the interior and north which are influenced by tropically sourced precipitation. Relatively humid phases in the Murray-Darling Basin on the semi-arid margins, which were characterised by large rivers most likely fed by snow melt, prevailed from 40 ka to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and from the deglacial to the mid Holocene. By contrast, the Lake Eyre basin in central Australia remained relatively dry throughout the last 40 ka, with lake high stands at Lake Frome around 35e30 ka, and parts of the deglacial period and the mid-Holocene. The LGM was characterised by widespread relative aridity and colder conditions, as evidenced by extensive desert dune activity and dust transport, lake level fall, and reduced but episodic fluvial activity. The climate of the deglacial period was spatially divergent. The southern part of the continent experienced a brief humid phase around w17e15 ka, followed by increased dune activity around w14e10 ka. This contrasts with the post-LGM persistence of arid conditions in the north, associated with a lapsed monsoon and reflected in lake level lows and reduced fluvial activity, followed by intensification of the monsoon and increasingly effective precipitation from w14 ka. Palaeoenvironmental change during the Holocene was also spatially variable. The early to mid-Holocene was, however, generally characterised by moderately humid conditions, demonstrated by lake level rise, source-bordering dune activity, and speleothem growth, persisting at different times across the continent. Increasingly arid conditions developed into the late Holocene, particularly in the central arid zone. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent. Approxi- mately half of the land mass is either arid or semi-arid. The area experiencing such climates fluctuated considerably due to varying * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 3413550344. E-mail address: kathryn_fitzsimmons@eva.mpg.de (K.E. Fitzsimmons). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev 0277-3791/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.09.007 Quaternary Science Reviews xxx (2012) 1e19 Please cite this article in press as: Fitzsimmons, K.E., et al., Late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental change in the Australian drylands, Quaternary Science Reviews (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.09.007