Influence of wind-blown dust on landscape evolution in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia

Abstract

The mobilization, transport and deposition of wind-blown dust have been the focus of scientific enquiry for over 2000 years in China, nearly two centuries in Europe and over fifty years in Australia. This paper considers how wind-blown dust may have enabled a fine-grained perennial wetland to develop and persist in the Flinders Ranges during a time of peak regional aridity. The sediments accumulated as floodplain deposits in perennially wet grassy meadows between ∼33 000 and ∼17 000 years ago. Wind-blown dust also contributed to the fine-grained late Pleistocene valley-fill deposits within and around the ranges that have been incised by present streams to form terraces and terrace remnants. Such deposits are not accumulating today.