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The age of dust; a new hydrological indicator in arid environments?

Simon Turner, Heather Handley, Paul Hesse, Bruce Schaefer and Anthony Dosseto
The age of dust; a new hydrological indicator in arid environments?
Geology (Boulder) (June 2021) 49 (6): 728-732

Abstract

Dust plays important roles in the environment, and there has been much interest in the formation, provenance, and age of the world's dust deposits. Ongoing debates are concerned with the importance of glacial grinding versus eolian abrasion and fluvial transport in the formation of silt-sized particles. Short-lived uranium-series isotopes afford new insights because they can be used both for provenance fingerprinting and for constraining the integrated age of chemical and physical weathering and subsequent transport and storage of sediments. Here we present trace element and Sr, Nd, and U-series isotope analyses from a number of Australian dusts and suspended river sediments remobilized during floods a year later. The inferred ages of the Australian dust appear to be linked to aridification and the loss of inland megalakes approximately 30-120 k.y. ago. This provides preliminary evidence that the age of dust may provide a new hydrological indicator in arid environments.


ISSN: 0091-7613
EISSN: 1943-2682
Coden: GLGYBA
Serial Title: Geology (Boulder)
Serial Volume: 49
Serial Issue: 6
Title: The age of dust; a new hydrological indicator in arid environments?
Affiliation: Macquarie University, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia
Pages: 728-732
Published: 202106
Text Language: English
Publisher: Geological Society of America (GSA), Boulder, CO, United States
References: 36
Accession Number: 2021-071885
Categories: Quaternary geologyIsotope geochemistry
Document Type: Serial
Bibliographic Level: Analytic
Illustration Description: illus. incl. geol. sketch map
S33°55'00" - S33°55'00", E151°10'00" - E151°10'00"
Secondary Affiliation: University of Wollongong, Wollongong, N.S.W, AUS, Australia
Country of Publication: United States
Secondary Affiliation: GeoRef, Copyright 2021, American Geosciences Institute. Reference includes data from GeoScienceWorld, Alexandria, VA, United States. Reference includes data supplied by the Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO, United States
Update Code: 202123
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