Palaeoenvironment records of six sediment cores collected in the Gulf of Carpentaria

The Gulf of Carpentaria is an epicontinental sea (maximum depth 70 m) between Australia and New Guinea, bordered to the east by Torres Strait (currently 12 m deep) and to the west by the Arafura Sill (53 m below present sea level). Throughout the Quaternary, during times of low sea-level, the Gulf was separated from the open waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, forming Lake Carpentaria, an isolation basin, perched above contemporaneous sea-level with outlet channels to the Arafura Sea. A preliminary interpretation is presented of the palaeoenvironments recorded in six sediment cores collected by the IMAGES program in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The longest core (approx. 15 m) spans the past 130 ka and includes a record of sea-level/lake-level changes, with particular complexity between 80 and 40 ka when sea-level repeatedly breached and withdrew from Gulf/Lake Carpentaria. […]

卡彭塔里亚湾，作为介于澳大利亚与新几内亚之间的陆缘海（最大深度70米），东临托雷斯海峡（现深度约12米），西濒阿拉弗拉海隆（现海平面下53米）。在全新世时期，海平面较低的时代，该湾与印度洋和太平洋的开放水域相隔，形成了卡彭塔里亚湖，一个孤立的水域，位于同期海平面之上，并通过通往阿拉弗拉海的出水通道。本文对由IMAGES项目在卡彭塔里亚湾采集的六个沉积岩芯中记录的古环境进行了初步解读。其中最长岩芯（约15米）跨越了过去13万年，包含了海平面/湖平面变化的历史记录，尤其是在8万至4万年之间，海平面反复跨越并从卡彭塔里亚湾/湖退去，其复杂性尤为突出。