A 23,000-yr pollen record from Lake Euramoo, Wet Tropics of NE Queensland, Australia Simon G. Haberle * Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia Received 17 January 2005 Abstract A new extended pollen and charcoal record is presented from Lake Euramoo, Wet Tropics World Heritage rainforest of northeast Queensland, Australia. The 8.4-m sediment core taken from the center of Lake Euramoo incorporates a complete record of vegetation change and fire history spanning the period from 23,000 cal yr B.P. to present. The pollen record is divided into five significant zones; 23,000–16,800 cal yr B.P., dry sclerophyll woodland; 16,800 –8600 cal yr B.P., wet sclerophyll woodland with marginal rainforest in protected pockets; 8600–5000 cal yr B.P., warm temperate rainforest; 5000–70 cal yr B.P., dry subtropical rainforest; 70 cal yr B.P.– A.D 1999, degraded dry subtropical rainforest with increasing influence of invasive species and fire. The process of rainforest development appears to be at least partly controlled by orbital forcing (precession), though more local environmental variables and human activity are also significant factors. This new record provides the opportunity to explore the relationship between fire, drought and rainforest dynamics in a significant World Heritage rainforest region. D 2005 University of Washington. All rights reserved. Keywords: Lake Euramoo; Pollen; Charcoal; Tropical rainforest; Holocene; Atherton Tablelands; Australia Introduction In 1970, the first pollen record from the Australian wet tropical rainforest (Lake Euramoo: Kershaw, 1970) was published and demonstrated that tropical palynology was indeed a viable approach to understanding rainforest dynamics over timescales only imagined in ecological studies. Since then, sediments from volcanic craters in the Atherton Table- lands of northeast Queensland have yielded multi-proxy data sets that have made an important contribution to our understanding of Australian palaeoclimates and rainforest vegetation history (Chen, 1988; Moss and Kershaw, 2000; Kershaw et al., 2002; Turney et al., 2004). One of the most outstanding attributes of these data is that they present a picture of a highly dynamic landscape, sensitive to both climate change and human activity on timescales ranging from millennia to decades (Haberle et al. in preparation; Turney et al., 2004). The late Quaternary vegetation history of the Atherton Tablelands is characterized by the expansion of rainforest taxa during warm and wet interglacial periods and contraction of these same taxa, to as yet unknown refugial locations, during cool and dry glacial periods (Kershaw, 1994). The rate at which these changes take place and the nature of succession from one vegetation community to another has been examined in greatest detail over the late glacial transition. This period is represented in five pollen records from the Atherton Tablelands and shows that the transition from sclerophyll woodland to rainforest began as early as 11,500 cal yr B.P., took from 400 to 1000 yr to complete and was regionally concluded by 7000 cal yr B.P. (Hiscock and Kershaw, 1992). An increase in effective precipitation during the late glacial transition is considered the primary driver of vegetation change (Kershaw et al., 2002), though local factors including development of organic soils and fire frequencies (either natural or anthropogenic) may have contributed to the apparent inhibition of rainforest advance during the early Holocene. Rainforest reach their maximum extent on the Atherton Tablelands by the around 7000 cal yr B.P. under a climate 0033-5894/$ - see front matter D 2005 University of Washington. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2005.08.013 * Fax: +61 2 6125 1635. E-mail address: simon.haberle@anu.edu.au. Quaternary Research 64 (2005) 343 – 356 www.elsevier.com/locate/yqres