干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Local northerly to westerly winds have led to the accumulation of a single large climbing dune in a sheltered location at the base of a rocky outcrop in the east Kimberley of Western Australia. The surface of the sand body reveals a series of small reversing dunes formed by north to westerly winds, and south to southeasterly winds. The thermoluminescence chronology of the climbing dune indicates aeolian activity for the Last Glacial Maximum (ca 22 ka) and the mid-to late Holocene (ca 6 ka to the present). Adjacent alluvium provides evidence for fluvial activity at ca 37 ka (Subpluvial Stage 3) and a return to fluvial activity in the early to mid-Holocene (ca 12-5 Iia). These observations conform well with other findings in northern Australia, but a dry late Holocene is in contrast to results from further south in the Great Sandy Desert.