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  • Unprecedented wind erosion and perturbation of surface geochemistry marks the Anthropocene in Australia

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    Author(s)
    Marx, Samuel K
    McGowan, Hamish A
    Kamber, Balz S
    Knight, Jon M
    Denholm, John
    Zawadzki, Atun
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Knight, Jon M.
    Year published
    2014
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    Abstract
    Australia, the last continent to undergo industrial development, is an ideal environment in which to quantify the magnitude of human-induced environmental change during the Anthropocene because its entire agricultural and industrial history has occurred within this period. Analysis of an alpine peat mire showed that rapid industrial and agricultural development (both pastoral and cropping) over the past 200 years has resulted in significant environmental change in Australia. Beginning in the 1880s, rates of wind erosion and metal enrichment were up to 10 and 30 times that of background natural conditions, respectively. ...
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    Australia, the last continent to undergo industrial development, is an ideal environment in which to quantify the magnitude of human-induced environmental change during the Anthropocene because its entire agricultural and industrial history has occurred within this period. Analysis of an alpine peat mire showed that rapid industrial and agricultural development (both pastoral and cropping) over the past 200 years has resulted in significant environmental change in Australia. Beginning in the 1880s, rates of wind erosion and metal enrichment were up to 10 and 30 times that of background natural conditions, respectively. Increased dust deposition and an expansion in dust source areas were found to map the progression of European farming across the continent,while dust deposition pulses in the mire matched known land degradation events. After 1990 dust deposition decreased, returning to pre-1880 rates. This was attributed to three factors: net soil loss following more than a century of agricultural activity, increased environmental awareness and soil conservation, and changing windiness. Metal enrichment in the mire reached approximately 2 times natural background accumulation rates by the 1980s as Australia's mining industry expanded. However, metal enrichment continued to increase after the 1980s reaching an average of ~5 times background rates by 2006 and reflecting increased mineral resource development in Australia. Collectively, the results show that changes to Australia's geochemical and sedimentary systems, as a result of agricultural and industrial development, have profoundly changed the Australian environment during the past two centuries.
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    Journal Title
    Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
    Volume
    119
    Issue
    1
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JF002948
    Copyright Statement
    © 2014 American Geophysical Union. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
    Subject
    Earth sciences
    Inorganic geochemistry
    Geomorphology and earth surface processes
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/62008
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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