The infilling of a terminal flood plain-wetland complex

Abstract

Flood plain-wetland complexes are mosaics of physical units and the sediments contained within these various units often display spatial and temporal complexity. This paper reconstructs the environmental history of a mosaic of geomorphic units within a large terminal flood plain-wetland complex in southeastern Australia in order to identify how the sediment character of the mosaic has changed through time. Sediment cores, up to 14 m in depth, were extracted from one flood plain and three lake units. Stratigraphy and multivariate analysis on these cores reveal a complex environ­mental history with sediment character highly variable in both time and space. All four geomorphic units - lake and flood plain - have undergone a convergent evolution from unique initial states. This study highlights how numerical methods, in association with standard sedimentological techniques, can assist in unravelling the environmental history of a temporally and spatially diverse landscape.