Sedimentation and vegetation change through the last glacial cycle at Echo Lake, Fraser Island.

Echo Lake is an ephemeral swamp perched above the groundwater table within the subtropical dunes of Fraser Island at 100 m above sea level. A 12 metre core was extracted in 1997-1998, with preliminary pollen analysis and dating suggesting the site preserved a palaeoenvironmental record beginning at 2 ka and spanning most of the last glacial cycle. However, the chronology has been problematic and sedimentation may have been interrupted or lost through drying and burning of the surface. Radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating suggested an age for the base of the sedimentary sequence of at least 100 ka. Here we present a new chronology based on OSL on lake sediments together with ITRAX-XRF proxies for palaeoenvironmental change. © Author(s