Environmental evolution of the Mallee region, western Murray Basin

Abstract

The Mallee region preserves legacies of past environmental changes, an understanding of which illuminates our understanding of the present and constrains some options for the future. An amazing record of sea level changes spanning the last 6 million years provides a template against which later developments of lacustrine and aeolian changes are defined in spatial and temporal contexts. The preserved shorelines of Plio-Pleistocene Parilla Sand provide a virtual contour map of Plio-Pleistocene landscapes clearly displaying effects of later tectonics. Development of acidic lateritic soil profiles of the Karoonda Surface progressed synchronously with tectonic interruption of drainage to form the..