A talk on glacial age (60 ka) to present day water resources in the Willandra Lakes region presented to a meeting of the Riverina branch of Soil Science Australia at Mathoura on 31 Aug 2018 by Dr Tim Pietsch, Griffith University (https://experts.griffith.edu.au/9627-tim-pietsch/about).

1. Glacial-age water resources in inland
southeastern Australia
J Kemp
T Pietsch
J Olley
R Grun
C Pardoe
A Gontz
ARC (2013) Kiacatoo Man: biology, archaeology and
environment at the Last Glacial Maximum.

2. 50 ka

3. Willandra Lakes – lake level record
?
?

4. 34 ka
0 60 ka

5. 50 ka?
?
?
0 60 ka

6. 30 ka
0 60 ka

7. 18 ka
16.2+1.6
20.3+1.5
0 60 ka

8. 16 ka
16.2+1.9
13.1+1.5
18.8+1.4
0 60 ka

9. 13 ka
13.4+1.3
0 60 ka

10. 8 ka
7.7+1.0
8.3+0.8
5.2+0.4
5.5+0.4
9.2+1.1
0 60 ka

11. 6 ka
0 60 ka

12. 5 ka
0 60 ka

13. Fluvial reconstructions

14. Geophysical methods
ERT (Electrical Resistivity Tomography)– Schlumberger array, 2.5
m electrodes, d= 20 m
EM (Electromagnetic conductivity), d = 6 m
GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), d= 0.1 m
EM ERT

15. 131
132
133
134
135
136
0 50 100 150
Tocabil 1, Willandra Ck
Willandra Ck
132
134
136
138
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
E
Tocabil 2, Willandra Ck
Toc2
Toc1
Toc2
Toc1

16. Merrowie Ck
112
113
113
114
114
115
0 50 100 150 200
heightabovesealevel,metres
chainage in metres
Merrowie Ck palaeochannel,

17. Willandra
lake
levels
Lachlan-
Willandra
annual
floods

18. Conclusions
 Fluvial record allows quantitative record of water availability that complements
lake records in inland Australia
 Offer information about migration routes
 And the potential for archaeological finds.