High Resolution climate studies in temperate Eastern Australia estuaries

Project Member(s): Skilbeck, C.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Institute of Nuclear Science & Engineering (AINSE 2004 Awards)

Start year: 2004

Summary: This proposal seeks funding for thirty 14-C dates to provide high-resolution Holocene chronology for cores from two eastern Australian estuaries. The proposed work arises from previous AINSE application 02/122 and supports ARC grant DP0209388. Our previous studies have demonstrated the presence of centennial and millennial-scale cyclicity in NSW estuarine sediments, and recent work from elsewhere (e.g. Stott et al. 2002) indicates possible correlation with both long-term ENSO variation and a possible link with northern hemisphere climate scale-variability (Skilbeck et al., 2005). Our most recent work on ODP Peru margin cores (Watson et al., 2003), as well as studies of instrumental records (Douglass et al. 2002) and recent coral laminations (Tudhope et al. 2002) clearly show, however, that important ENSO variability also occurs in the range of 15-100 years, well beyond the resolution of our existing data which contain a maximum resolvable frequency of about 1 cycle/200 years. Consequently, we have identified drill sites in both Tuggerah Lake and Fullerton Cove (Figure 1) where ~6 m Holocene sections are present. Cores of this thickness will provide us with an average resolution of ~15 years for our 1 cm thick samples. The samples requested in this proposal will allow us to establish a detailed, high-resolution chronology at both locations, and to investigate decadal-scale ENSO cyclicity in eastern Australia.

Publications:

Taffs, KH, Saunders, KM, Weckström, K, Gell, PA & Skilbeck, CG 2017, 'Introduction to the Application of Paleoecological Techniques in Estuaries' in Weckstrom, K, Saunders, KM, Gell, PA & Skilbeck, CG (eds), Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, Springer Netherlands, The Netherlands, pp. 1-6.
View/Download from: Publisher's site

FOR Codes: Climatology (incl. Palaeoclimatology), Climate variability

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.