Late Pleistocene Glaciation of the Kosciuszko Massif,

Snowy Mountains, Australia.

Barrows, T.T.1, Stone, J.O.2, Fifield, L.K.3, Cresswell, R.G.3

1. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, ACT, 0200, Canberra, Australia Tim.Barrows@anu.edu.au

2. Quaternary Research Center/Department of Geological Sciences, University of Washington, United States of America

3. Department of Nuclear Physics, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University, ACT, 0200, Canberra, Australia

The Kosciuszko Massif in the Snowy Mountains represents the only area of irrefutable Pleistocene glaciation on the Australian mainland. However, considerable controversy dates back to the 19th century as to the timing and extent of the glaciation. To review the evidence, we remapped glacial landforms on the Massif and found that the maximum extent of glaciation was within the ‘probable’ limits drawn by Galloway (1963). There is evidence for at least 2 glaciations, the first consisting of at least one advance and the second consisting of at least three advances. To place numerical ages on the glaciations we exposure-dated 24 boulders from the moraines sequences at Blue Lake and Lake Cootapatamba, making them some of the best dated sequences in the Southern Hemisphere. Exposure dating is based on measuring the accumulation of cosmogenic isotopes in minerals from rock surfaces, in this case 10Be in quartz. The dates indicate that the first glaciation (the Early Kosciuszko) which was also the most extensive, occurred ~55-65,000 years ago. The last glaciation, the Late Kosciuszko, consisted of three advances which were progressively less extensive and occurred between ~15,000 and ~35,000 years ago.

References

Galloway, R. W. 1963. Glaciation in the Snowy Mountains: A re-appraisal. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 88, 180-198.