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1284014 
Journal Article 
The timing of the last glacial maximum in Australia 
Barrows, TT; Stone, JO; Fifield, LK; Cresswell, RG 
2002 
1 
Quaternary Science Reviews
ISSN: 0277-3791 
Pergamon 
United Kingdom (GBR) 
21 
1-3 (January 2002) 
159-173 
Late Pleistocene glaciation of Australia was restricted to the Snowy Mountains and the Tasmanian highlands. Glaciers were most extensive in Tasmania where ice caps formed on the Central Plateau and West Coast Ranges, and systems of valley and cirque glaciers formed on surrounding mountains. To investigate the timing of maximum glacier advance during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), we dated boulders on 18 moraines in 8 glaciated areas using cosmogenic (super 36) Cl and (super 10) Be. We sampled moraines deposited by cirque and valley glaciers, in a range of climate types and lithologies over a 7 degrees latitudinal and a 1430 m altitudinal transect. Exposure ages for LGM moraine boulders group tightly in the range 17-20 ka. Boulders from the Hamilton moraine, often treated as the LGM type moraine, range in age from approximately 190-350 ka, indicating that it was deposited well before the last glaciation. Collectively, the exposure ages show that southeastern Australia was glaciated briefly during and after the LGM, and deglaciated well before the Holocene. Ice retreated from the terminal moraines after the period of coldest sea-surface temperatures in the southwest Pacific Ocean. No evidence was found for readvance of glaciers during the Antarctic Cold Reversal or the Younger Dryas period. 
moraines; Weichselian; Younger Dryas; upper Pleistocene; absolute age; Antarctic Cold Reversals; glaciation; Cenozoic; alkaline earth metals; cosmogenic elements; upper Weichselian; Pleistocene; glacial extent; ice caps; clastic sediments; glacial geology; beryllium; isotopes; Snowy Mountains; Australia; Cl-36; dates; exposure age; metals; chlorine; geochronology; Be-10; sediments; Tasmania Australia; halogens; boulders; Australasia; Quaternary; radioactive isotopes; last glacial maximum