Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
high at intervals from the last interglacial onwards but dried out completely during
the LGM, as did the Willandra Lakes of western New South Wales. However, both
of these lake systems receive their water from the Eastern Highlands of Australia
and so do not provide direct information about the local climate. The same is true
of the Makgadikgadi Lake transgressions in southern Africa, which depended on
run-off from the Angolan uplands to the north carried in by the Okavango River and,
on occasion, the Zambezi. In China, the desert lakes show differences in the timing
of maximum Holocene levels, reflecting the slightly varying influence of the three
separate monsoon systems controlling precipitation over the lake basins. In
Chapter
12
, we examine the evidence for pluvial conditions alleged to be synchronous with
glacial maxima, beginning with the pluvial lakes of North and South America.
