Reappraisal of sea-level lowstand during the Last Glacial Maximum observed in the Bonaparte Gulf sediments, northwestern Australia

Abstract

During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ice volume reached a relative maximum and global temperature was lower than today. Understanding continental ice volume change requires accurate reconstruction of relative sea level, but tectonic uplift and isostatic adjustment effects complicate many records. Using marine sediment cores from the Bonaparte Gulf in northwestern Australia, a so-called “far field” tectonically stable site, Yokoyama et al. (2000) reported that the LGM terminated abruptly at 19 ka with a rapid sea-level rise (19 ka event). Their sea-level reconstruction determined the age of the LGM termination, but the timing of its inception remained less well constrained, partly because the number of radiocarbon analyses was insufficient to clarify LGM duration. Here we return to the Bonaparte Gulf and present a new relative sea level that better constrains LGM duration with high-resolution radiocarbon dating of a recently recovered marine sediment core (water depth: 120 m, length: 583 cm). Radiocarbon dating of 23 molluscs and 26 bulk organic-matter samples, together with total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and stable carbon isotopes, provide a record of paleoenvironmental variability in response to sea level change. Our results indicate that the LGM sea-level minimum occurred at 20.8 cal ka BP and the LGM duration was shorter than previously reported.