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The Cooroibah wildfire sweeps down the Cooloola Sand Dunes in Australia. Credit score: Michael Ford

Realizing how the frequency and depth of wildfires has modified over time presents scientists a glimpse into Earth’s previous landscapes, in addition to an understanding of future local weather change impacts. To reconstruct fireplace information, researchers rely closely on sediment information from lake beds, however because of this fireplace histories from arid areas are sometimes ignored. Now, a brand new research reveals that sand dunes can function repositories of fireplace historical past and support in increasing scientific understanding of fireplace regimes around the globe.

Printed Might 11 in Quaternary Analysis, the research is the primary to look at sedimentary information preserved in foot-slope deposits of sand dunes. The analysis staff, led by Nicholas Patton, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher now at DRI, studied 4 sand dunes on the Cooloola Sand Mass in Australia. Australia is likely one of the world’s most fire-prone landscapes, with a protracted historical past of each pure and cultural burning, and huge expanses with out lakes or ponds to collect sedimentary information from.

The researchers aimed to show that these sand dune deposits could possibly be used to reconstruct dependable, multi-millennial fireplace histories. These beforehand unrecognized archives might doubtlessly be utilized in arid areas around the globe to fill information gaps in locations the place fireplace shapes the panorama.

“Many fireplace and paleoclimate information are positioned the place there’s plenty of water our bodies corresponding to lakes, peats, and bogs,” Patton says. “And due to this, most world fashions actually have a bias in direction of temperate areas.”

The Cooloola Sand Mass consists of monumental—as much as 240-meter-tall—sand dunes that construct up on the coast and regularly shift inland from the facility of the wind. By figuring out the age of the dunes utilizing a method referred to as optically stimulated luminescence courting, or OSL, Patton’s staff discovered that the 4 dunes span the Holocene, representing the final roughly 12,000 years.

As soon as a dune is secure, that means it’s now not rising however slowly degrading, the power of gravity acts on the dune slopes to gather falling sand on the base, together with the remnants of charcoal from native fires that deposited on the dune’s floor. This sediment builds up over time, layering charcoal from fireplace occasions that may be reliably recognized utilizing radiocarbon courting.

“We had been digging soil pits on the base of the dunes and had been seeing plenty of charcoal—extra charcoal than we anticipated,” says Patton. “And we thought possibly we might make the most of these deposits to reconstruct native fires inside the space.”

An illustration displaying how charcoal layers accumulate in dune foot-slope deposits. Credit score: Nicholas Patton/DRI

Patton discovered that on the youthful dunes (at 500 years outdated and a couple of,000 years outdated), charcoal layers represented particular person fires, as a result of the steep slope of the dunes rapidly buried every layer. Nevertheless, the older dunes (at 5,000 years outdated and 10,000 years outdated) had extra gradual slopes that blended charcoal from totally different fires over time, offering a greater understanding of durations of elevated or decreased fireplace frequency.

The dunes provided localized fireplace histories from inside an approximate 100-meter radius, so fireplace information fluctuate considerably among the many 4 dunes, which spanned roughly 2 kilometers. Nevertheless, Patton’s staff in contrast their outcomes to different fireplace information from the area present in lake and swamp deposits. Much like the regional information, their findings confirmed three main durations of fireplace exercise over the previous 7,000 years.

The researchers write that related information are probably held in sand dunes around the globe, and that areas like California and the Southwest U.S. may gain advantage from a greater understanding of regional fireplace historical past. Embedded inside the fireplace information shouldn’t be solely details about pure wildfires, but in addition the best way that people influenced fireplace regimes.

“Hearth histories are vital for understanding how fireplace was used prior to now for cultural functions, whether or not that was to clear fields for agriculture or for searching,” Patton says.

Patton hopes to proceed this line of analysis at different dunes close to the Cooloola Sand Mass which might be almost 1 million years outdated to acquire a long-term fireplace historical past for the area. As a result of Australia has had human communities for no less than 60-70 thousand years, and fairly presumably longer, these information might assist perceive the connection between people and historic fireplace regimes.

“These sorts of long-term information aren’t at all times accessible inside lake sediments, however they is perhaps accessible inside these dune deposits,” Patton says. “That is fairly thrilling.”

Extra data: Nicholas R. Patton et al, Reconstructing Holocene fireplace information utilizing dune footslope deposits on the Cooloola Sand Mass, Australia, Quaternary Analysis (2023). DOI: 10.1017/qua.2023.14