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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 1996; v. 115; p. 139-153;
DOI: 10.1144/GSL.SP.1996.115.01.11
© 1996 Geological Society of London

Mediterranean, Tropical and Monsoon Regions

The response of geomorphic systems to climatic and hydrological change during the Late Glacial and early Holocene in the humid and sub-humid tropics

Michael F. Thomas1 & Martin B. Thorp2

1 Department of Environmental Science, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK
2 Martin B. Thorp, Department of Geography, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 Republic of Ireland

Dated alluvial stratigraphies indicative of late Quaternary environmental change in the humid tropics have increased, but the database remains inadequate and the intensity and duration of wet-dry oscillations and responses of hillslopes and river systems remain poorly understood. Dry conditions at the Last Glacial Maximum were marked by semi-arid landforms with reduced stream activity. Large palaeofloods, valley-floor erosion, channel cutting and flood deposition occurred at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition after 13 000 BP. Distinctive floodplains and stratigraphies characterized by multiple shifts from lateral to vertical accretion were built initially over a period of nearly 2 ka after 9 500 BP during the early Holocene pluvial in Africa, Kalimantan and Amazonia during and after re-establishment of the lowland rainforests. Several wet-dry climatic oscillations followed in the mid-Holocene period and are marked by alluvial cut and fill sequences and by slightly thinner but coarse textured floodplain overbank sediments.