Desert dunes - Climatic Change in Deserts - page 138

Figure 8.14. Map showing desert dunes, dune fields, lakes and rivers in the Australian
arid zone.
were underlain by late Pleistocene alluvial and lacustrine sediments and concluded
that, at least in south-west Queensland and South Australia, the linear dunes of the
Simpson Desert were very late Pleistocene or early Holocene in age, although the
chronological control at that time was rudimentary. Twidale later rectified this, and
his subsequent work with Lomax et al. ( 2003 ) showed that dunes in the Strzelecki
Desert yielded OSL ages of at least 65 ka, with a fluvial depositional phase of 160 ka,
suggesting that far earlier phases of dune activity could not be ruled out.
Twidale's ( 1972 ) earlier conclusions in regard to long-distance eolian transport of
sand have been somewhat modified by later work. Using a combination of physical
and chemical analyses, including quartz oxygen isotope composition, Pell et al. ( 1999 ;
2000 ) concluded that the sands of the Simpson, Strzelecki, Tirari and Great Victoria