Human Impacts on the Landscape
Roger Hooke
Humans move tremendous amounts of earth every year. They are arguably the premier geomorphic agent sculpting the surface of Earth today. In the early 1990s, people in the United States were moving about 0.8 Gt (Gt ...

Radiocarbon calibration
Quan Hua
Radiocarbon dating is one of the most reliable and well-established methods for dating the Holocene and Late Pleistocene. Natural radiocarbon or 14C is produced in the atmosphere by the interaction of the secondary ...

Understanding soil erosion and landscape evolution using computer based predictive models
Greg Hancock
The ability to measure and model soil erosion and resultant landscape evolution is important because soil erosion has a range of environmental impacts, including loss of organic matter and nutrients, reduction of ...

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and what coral reefs can tell us about changes of sea level
Colin Woodroffe
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean are the only atoll that Charles Darwin visited during the voyage of the Beagle.Darwin had developed a theory that gradual subsidence of volcanic islands in ...

Balls Pyramid and the efficacy of marine abrasion
Colin Woodroffe
Balls Pyramid is a striking example of the penultimate stage in the marine planation of a volcanic island. It is a remarkable monolith of basalt that rises spectacularly to a height of 551 m (Fig. 1), as wave ...

Ant activity and the development of nutrient-rich soil profiles
David Eldridge
Rainfall is one of the most important factors in arid and semi-arid (dryland) environments; it supplements soil moisture storage, stimulates plant germination, and brings new life to dormant vegetation. Rainfall ...

Native animals and the formation of healthy soils
David Eldridge
Soil is an important resource on which most of the world's production depends. Soil is not an inert medium; it is a living and breathing ecosystem made up of water, air and organic material. Soil provides the ...

Effects of 4-Wheel Drive Vehicles on Beach Sediment Transport
Timothy Austin
The use of 4-Wheel Drive (4WD) vehicles on coastal beaches is an activity that attracts considerable controversy amongst beach users. 4WD vehicles are currently permitted access to hundreds of beaches throughout ...

Linear dune formation: Longitudinal elongation or local wind rifting? An example from the Strzelecki Desert, central Australia
Kathryn Fitzsimmons
The Australian desert dunefields are dominated by linear dunes, which form a large anti-clockwise whorl across more than one third of the continent (Wasson et al., 1988). Despite being so extensive, the mechanisms ...

The continental dunefield of Australia
Paul Hesse
Dunefields cover a large portion of the Australian continent in areas with favourable topography, climate and sand supply. The main areas of dunes lie in a diagonal band across the continent from the Mallee ...