Formation and age of desert dunes in the Lake Eyre depocentres in central Australia

Lateral migration, thermoluminescence chronology and colour variation of longitudinal dunes near Birdsville in the Simpson Desert, central Australia

“…Dates from adjoining dunefields in eastern central Australia yield ages as far back as 270 kyr (Nanson et al, 1988). There is little doubt that the Simpson Desert dune field is much older than the <40 kyr estimate (Wopfner and Twidale, 1988;Twidale and Wopfner, 1990) based on radiocarbon dates of fossil mammalian bone from underlying fluvial and lacustrine sediments. Much of this substrate is clearly Last Interglacial in age or older (Nanson et al, 1991a;Callen and Nanson, 1992).…”

Seasonal variation of crescentic dune morphology and morphometry, Strzelecki–Simpson Desert, Australia

“…Notable exceptions to this circumstance are the vast linear-dune-dominated deserts of Australia that cover some 20 per cent of the continent's area (Ash and Wasson, 1983). However, relatively recently, minor areas of crescentic dunes have been reported at Gurra Gurra waterhole in the Strzelecki Desert of north eastern South Australia (Figure 1) and the Finke River in the Simpson Desert of southern Northern Territory (Wasson, 1983a, b;Mabbut and Wooding, 1983;Wopfner and Twidale, 1988).…”

Valley-marginal sand dunes in the south-west Kalahari: their nature, classification and possible origins

“…These dunes always occur in the lowest topographic position in the landscape, near or adjacent to modern streams. Similar features have been identified in the Simpson Desert by Wopfner & Twidale (1988) on the Diamantina River near Birdsville and by Nanson et al (1995) on the Finke River to the north of Finke. In both cases the dune form occurs on the downwind margin of the river floodplain and consists of a transverse main ridge with linear dunes extending north from it, eventually merging into the linear dunefield.…”

“…In both cases the dune form occurs on the downwind margin of the river floodplain and consists of a transverse main ridge with linear dunes extending north from it, eventually merging into the linear dunefield. The sourcebordering dunes adjacent to the Diamantina River described by Wopfner & Twidale (1988) are extensively gullied, with much of the eroded sediment returned to the river channel from where it may act as a potential sediment source and be recycled back into the dune. A similar mechanism has been described for gullied lunette dunes in the south-west Kalahari (Thomas et al, 1993) but this close coupling of the aeolian and fluvial sediment systems has not been observed on any of the valley-marginal dunes described here.…”

“…There are two remaining dune types with which valley-marginal dunes could be compared: the source-bordering rampart (Wopfner & Twidale, 1988) or source-bordering dune (e.g. Nanson et al, 1995) and the cliff-top dune.…”