Climate change in Australia may have played a part in the extinction of many large animals some 50,000 years ago.

The cause of the mass die-off is debated, with some saying that ecological collapse was sparked by human use of fire 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Climate-related factors had been dismissed because there seemed to be little change in Australia's climate at that time. However, Tim Cohen of the University of Wollongong in Australia and his colleagues looked at sediments along the shores of two huge lakes, Eyre and Frome, and found that their water levels decreased drastically around the time when megafauna went extinct.

Lakes that shrank under a changing climate could have led to the demise of plants and herbivorous animals, the authors say.

Geology http://doi.org/z8n (2015)