Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://hdl.handle.net/2440/137610
Citations | ||
Scopus | Web of Science® | Altmetric |
---|---|---|
?
|
?
|
Type: | Journal article |
Title: | Revisiting the late Quaternary fossiliferous infills of Cathedral Cave, Wellington Caves (central eastern New South Wales, Australia) |
Author: | Fusco, D.A. Arnold, L.J. Gully, G.A. Levchenko, V.A. Jacobsen, G.E. Prideaux, G.J. |
Citation: | Journal of Quaternary Science, 2023; 38(4):505-525 |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Issue Date: | 2023 |
ISSN: | 0267-8179 1099-1417 |
Statement of Responsibility: | Diana A. Fusco, Lee J. Arnold, Grant A. Gully, Vladimir A. Levchenko, Geraldine E. Jacobsen, And Gavin J. Prideaux |
Abstract: | 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, petrography, sedimentology and geochemistry, and employing optically stimulated luminescence dating, radiocarbon dating and Bayesian age modelling to establish a robust chronology. We recognise 13 sedimentary layers and sublayers in two stratigraphic units. Unit 2 accumulated between 72 000 ± 5000 and 38 000 ± 7000 years ago as sediments and animals entered through a now‐blocked ceiling hole. Accumulation halted for around 30 000 years when the hole closed. Unit 1 accumulated when deposition was reinitiated around 7000 ± 2000 years ago, continuing through to a few hundred years ago. Our chronology refutes earlier dating of the deposit, which suggested that extinct Pleistocene megafauna taxa persisted locally until the Last Glacial Maximum. It confirms the deposit as one of the few in Australia that formed during the interval of major environmental upheaval marked by the arrival of humans, variable climate and the extinction of many megafaunal species. |
Keywords: | cave sediments; geochronology; palaeontology; Quaternary; Wellington Caves |
Description: | Published May 2023 |
Rights: | © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
DOI: | 10.1002/jqs.3497 |
Grant ID: | http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP150100264 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT130100195 |
Published version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3497 |
Appears in Collections: | Earth and Environmental Sciences publications |
Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.
Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.