Abstract
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a shallow epicontinental sea between Australia and Papua New Guinea (Fig. 1); it has a maximum depth of −69 m and is connected to the Arafura Sea across a −53-m sill1; in the east, the connection to the Coral Sea through Torres Straits is −12 m (ref. 1). We propose here that low sea levels during the Pleistocene2,3 (Fig. 2) resulted in subaerial exposure of the Gulf of Carpentaria, thereby reducing the regional input of moisture and latent heat to the atmosphere and tropical cyclogenesis. As a result, the climate of the Carpentaria Basin may have been significantly drier than at present4,5. Even so, previous workers6,7 have reported the presence of lacustrine sediments in the Gulf that could have been deposited when the sea level dropped below the −53-m contour1. During 1982, the extent of Lake Carpentaria was defined by high-resolution seismic profiles and cores. The size and development of Lake Carpentaria and its dependence on the hydrological balance are discussed below.
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Torgersen, T., Jones, M., Stephens, A. et al. Late Quaternary hydrological changes in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Nature 313, 785–787 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/313785a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/313785a0
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