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Multiple episodes of aridity in southern Africa since the last interglacial period

Nature volume 388, pages 154–158 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

There is generally a dearth of evidence of the nature of Quaternary climate change within desert systems, which has limited previous interpretations of past environmental change at low latitudes. The Last Glacial Maximum has previously been identified as the peak of Late Quaternary aridity, when desert systems expanded to five times their present extent1,2,3, and low-latitude aridity has been described for previous glaciations4. But little evidence has been derived directly for large desert basins, particularly southern Africa. Here we report new chronological (optical dating) evidence of arid episodes recorded in aeolian sediments from the Mega Kalahari sand sea. Episodic aeolian activity is recorded at the northeastern desert margin, whereas more sustained activity is evident from the southwestern desert core. Several significant arid events are apparent since the last interglacial period, with dune-building (arid) phases at ∼95–115, 41–46, 20–26 and 9–16 kyr before present. Existing atmospheric general circulation model simulations and independent palaeoclimate data indicate that the changes in aridity are related to changes in the northeast–southwest summer rainfall gradient, which are in turn related to sea surface temperatures in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean.

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Figure 1: Sample sites within the linear dune systems are shown by filled squares in the two boxed areas (which are shown in detail in Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Summary stratigraphic and chronological data for dune sites: a, southwestern Kalahari; b, northeastern Kalahari; c, summary of optical dates and inferred aeolian depositional phases for site 1004 from the northeastern Kalahari (weighted average and standard deviations for grouped samples are provided).

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Shaw and G. Haynes for discussions; M. Malifa, M. Moore, B. Adder, P. O'Connor, G. Wiggs, E and K. Walker for technical and field assistance; P. Hayward for drafting assistance; G. A. Brookes, M. Little and D. Kroon for providing access to unpublished data; M. J. Aitken, A.K. Singhvi and C. K. Folland for advice on wider aspects of the research programme; and D. Sexton for help with model data. This work forms part of a wider project on southern African palaeoenvironments funded in part by the Trapnell Fund, the Universities of Oxford and Sheffield; R. Washington was supported by the DOE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *School of Geography, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, OX1 3QJ, Oxford, UK

    Stephen Stokes & Richard Washington

  2. †Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, OX1 3TB, Oxford, UK

    Stephen Stokes

  3. ‡Department of Geography, Sheffield Centre for International Drylands Research, University of Sheffield, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK

    David S. G. Thomas

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Correspondence to Stephen Stokes.

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Stokes, S., Thomas, D. & Washington, R. Multiple episodes of aridity in southern Africa since the last interglacial period. Nature 388, 154–158 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/40596

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