Late Pleistocene aeolian reactivation downwind of the Naracoorte East range, southeastern South Australia

Southeastern South Australia, straddling the coastal zone and semi-arid desert margins of the lower Murray-Darling Basin, provides an important record of landscape response to past environmental change during the Pleistocene. Previous research in the region has focussed either on the coastal barrier systems, which formed during interglacial periods, or on the sub-parabolic and linear dune systems downwind, which generally formed under arid conditions out of phase with the strandlines. However, the geomorphologic and chronological relationship between these two systems is poorly understood. This study provides the first constraints on the initiation of dune development downwind of the Naracoorte East strandline. In this preliminary study we show that aeolian deposition at Naracoorte was constrained by sediment supply from the strandline upwind, and was most likely gradual, more or less continuous, and took place under relatively arid climatic regimes. We demonstrate a genetic link between strandlines and the dune fields in the region.