Geoffrey Hope

Australian National University | ANU · Department of Archaeology & Natural History

In Australia, the drivers of precolonial fire regimes remain contentious, with some advocating an anthropogenic-dominated regime, and others highlighting the importance of climate, climatic variability or alternatively some nexus between climate and human activity. Here, we explore the inter-relationships between fire, humans and vegetation using m...

Sites recording the extinction or extirpation of tropical–subtropical and cool–cold temperate rainforest genera during the Plio–Pleistocene aridification of Australia are scattered across the continent, with most preserving only partial records from either the Pliocene or Pleistocene. The highland Lake George basin is unique in accumulating sedimen...

Rennix Gap Bog is a sub-alpine topogenic peatland that contains up to 2 m of organic-rich sediments that have built up over the last approximately 12,000 years. This paper summarises the research and teaching activities that have been undertaken at the site, which has included consideration of the sediment stratigraphy, radiometric dating, palynolo...

This paper reports the results of an investigation into past major tsunamis on the Aitape coast of Papua New Guinea. The investigation was mounted to gather information to help assess the level of ongoing tsunami risk, in the aftermath of a catastrophic tsunami that struck this coast in 1998. We found that local residents have a strong oral traditi...

We report pollen, charcoal and diatom records from the upper 4 m of a core from Inle Lake, Myanmar, spanning the entire Holocene, to investigate the changing palaeoenvironments in which early agriculture developed. From 12,000 to 10,500 cal yr BP a grass swamp existed until it was flooded by rising lake levels, indicated by the onset of marl deposi...

Glacial−interglacial variations in CO 2 and methane in polar ice cores have been attributed, in part, to changes in global wetland extent, but the wetland distribution before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 ka to 18 ka) remains virtually unknown. We present a study of global peatland extent and carbon (C) stocks through the last glacial cycle (13...

New evidence of impacts by feral horses in Australia's alpine parks systems confirms they endanger threatened species and extensively damage critically endangered bog communities that could take millennia to recover. These impacts are not confounded by effects of deer and accumulate over time, even when only a small number of feral horses (~100) ar...

Long, well-dated records of climate change in Australia are rare because most of the continent is prone to deflation and sediments are difficult to date beyond 40 ka. Deep-sea cores, containing terrigenous material, provide an ideal alternative to terrestrial records, because of continuous sedimentation and a robust chronology derived from oxygen i...

Although it is well established that moisture availability in south-eastern Australia has been decreasing through time recently, the driver(s) of this trend are contentious, and our understanding of any drivers is limited by a relatively short historic record. Testate amoebae have been widely used to reconstruct peatland hydrology in the Northern H...

We examined the radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) reservoir effect in Lake Kutubu using tephrochronology and terrestrial plant material to deliver a precise age-depth profile and sedimentation rates for this lake. Based on the presence of two tephra horizons (Tibito and Olgaboli), we found a reservoir age offset in sediments of between 1490 and 2280 ¹⁴ C yr usin...

Quaternary records provide an opportunity to examine the nature of the vegetation and fire responses to rapid past climate changes comparable in velocity and magnitude to those expected in the 21st-century. The best documented examples of rapid climate change in the past are the warming events associated with the Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) cycles dur...

Sediment cores were retrieved from Lake Kutubu, the largest upland lake in Papua New Guinea, to assess palaeoenvironmental baselines. Two prominent tephra layers were encountered within the cores. Using a combination of core stratigraphy, sediment properties and geochemical characterization (electron microprobe and laser ablation inductively couple...

Quaternary records provide an opportunity to examine the nature of the vegetation and fire responses to rapid past climate changes comparable in velocity and magnitude to those expected in the 21st century. The best documented examples of rapid climate change in the past are the warming events associated with the Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles dur...

The three sedimentary units infilling Lake George provide the longest quasi-continuous sedimentary record of any Australian lake basin. A combination of cosmogenic nuclide burial, magnetostratigraphy and biostratigraphic dating techniques previously has shown that the basal (fluvial) unit, the Gearys Gap Formation, began accumulating at ca 4 Ma, in...

Lake George contains the longest continuous sedimentary record of any Australian lake basin, but previous age models are equivocal, particularly for the oldest (pre-Quaternary) part of the record. We have applied a combination of cosmogenic nuclide burial dating, magnetostratigraphy and biostratigraphy to determine the age of the basal (fluvial) un...

Solutional landforms (karst) can form on old surfaces on ultramafic rocks in the tropics because of the solubility of some magnesium-rich minerals under warmth and high CO2. The radiocarbon dating of organic pond deposits in several tropical ultramafic karst hollows demonstrates that very slow sediment accumulation has occurred, relative to other t...

Regional changes in vegetation and environment in the last 16 ka have been reconstructed from Micalong Swamp and Willigobung Swamp (35°S) on the western Southern Tablelands of New South Wales (NSW). Micalong Swamp lies at 980m above sea level (a.s.l.), which is close to the subalpine treeline at this latitude. Willigobung Swamp (780m a.s.l.) approa...

The New Guinea alpine-subalpine zone is the highest, largest, and wettest such region on any tropical island and it preserves great variations in biodiversity between the individual mountain areas. Relatively few plant species are confined to the alpine zone and this may reflect a limited time for adaptation by herbaceous species arriving in the fo...

1] Climate is an important control on biomass burning, but the sensitivity of fire to changes in temperature and moisture balance has not been quantified. We analyze sedimentary charcoal records to show that the changes in fire regime over the past 21,000 yrs are predictable from changes in regional climates. Analyses of paleo-fire data show that f...

The pollen morphology of 36 genera and 147 species from the Myrtaceae tribes Chamelaucieae, Leptospermeae and Lindsayomyrteae was surveyed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy (LM). Syncolpate pollen were observed in all genera of Leptospermeae and some genera of Chamelaucieae. Genera of tribe Chamelaucieae displayed five d...

Pollen morphology of 16 genera and 101 species from the Myrtaceae tribes Backhousieae, Melaleuceae, Metrosidereae, Osbornieae and Syzygieae was surveyed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy (LM). The most common pollen type observed in these tribes was parasyncolpate with arcuate or angular colpi, and a rugulate exine patte...

A family-wide palynological study of Myrtaceae was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy (LM). In this part of the study, the pollen morphology of 18 genera and 150 species from the Myrtaceae tribes of subfamily Myrtoideae, Eucalypteae, Lophostemoneae, Syncarpieae, Xanthostemoneae and subfamily Psiloxyloideae are p...

Pollen morphology of 44 genera and 101 species from the Myrtaceae tribes Kanieae, Myrteae and Tristanieae was surveyed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and light microscopy (LM). Most Myrteae pollen were brevicolpate and granulate, which is unique within Myrtaceae, and these are most likely ancestral characters for this tribe. Two main poll...

Cents and Sustainability: Securing our Common Future by Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures. SmithM.H., HargrovesK.C., & DeshaC. (2010). Publisher: Earthscan, London, ISBN 9781844075294, pp. 405. - Volume 27 Issue 2 - Geoffrey Hope

This chapter presents estimates of likely glaciation extents across equatorial southeast Asia based on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model and also discusses new evidence for multiple glaciations. Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia has an area of 19.3 km2 higher than 3000 m above sea level (asl) but maximum glacier extent is closer t...

The reality of human-forced rapid climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the conservation of biodiversity in Australia. In this paper we consider the role of Australia’s current protected area network in mitigating biodiversity loss across the continent. We do this by first examining the evolutionary history of Australia’s extant fau...

The Mt Giluwe shield volcano was the largest area glaciated in Papua New Guinea during the Pleistocene. Despite minimal cooling of the sea surface during the last glacial maximum, glaciers reached elevations as low as 3200 m. To investigate changes in the extent of ice through time we have re-mapped evidence for glaciation on the southwest flank of...

Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak's Forests. By BevisWilliam W.. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995. Pp. x, 245. Maps, Figures, Photographs, Bibliography. - Volume 28 Issue 2 - Geoffrey Hope

We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the temporal and spatial variability of fire regimes during the Late Quaternary. While some of these records cover more than a full glacial cycle, here we focus on the last 70,000 years when the number of individual records in the compilation allows more robust c...

Aim Comparative responses of Nothofagus species to water deficits were studied to determine whether rainfall regimes could limit the latitudinal ranges of tropical and temperate forest species. Location The study species are native to New Guinea, New Caledonia, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina. Methods Seedlings of Nothofagus species fro...

Snow-line elevations of former glaciers around the tropical Pacific Ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) provide critical constraints on the state of the lower tropical troposphere. We present new moraine chronological information that pins down LGM snow-line elevations adjacent to the western Pacific warm-pool. We mapped several major seque...

Kosipe, an upland valley at 2000 m altitude in the Owen Stanley Ranges of southeastern New Guinea, is known for the discovery of large stone waisted blades dated to 31 400 cal a BP. The purpose of these tools and the nature of occupation are unknown. The altitude is too high for most food crops today and may have stood close to the treeline during...

Six pollen records from Viti Levu and one from Tavieuni were prepared by Wendy Southern in her unpublished PhD (Southern 1986). Additional sites on Viti Levu and Vanua Levu were collected by Hope and Atholl Anderson in 1996, and in the Lau Islands cores were collected by Muriel Brookfield in 1980 (Latham et al. 1983) and by Hope, Patrick Nunn and G...

Fire activity has varied globally and continuously since the last glacial maximum (LGM) in response to long-term changes in global climate and shorter-term regional changes in climate, vegetation, and human land use. We have synthesized sedimentary charcoal records of biomass burning since the LGM and present global maps showing changes in fire act...

A review of Holocene climate patterns in eastern Australia is presented on the basis of a series of high-resolution pollen records across a north-to-south transect. Previously published radiocarbon data are calibrated into calendar years and fitted with an age-depth model. The resulting chronologies are used to compare past environmental changes an...

SUMMARY Peatlands are extensive above 1000m in New Guinea and become the dominant substrate above 3000m in the subalpine. Swamp forest and grassy sedgeland predominate in the montane mires on swampy valley bottoms. Most mires are 5-10m in depth, with peat deposition spanning more than 30,000 years. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) there are 140,000 ha of...

New Guinea's mountains provide an important case study for understanding early modern human environmental adaptability and early developments leading to agriculture. Evidence is presented showing that human colonization pre-dated 35ka (ka ¼ thousands of uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present) and was accompanied by landscape modification usi...

The range of rock types, climate, and relief in Papua, the western half of New Guinea, provides a wide range of soil types. This brief chapter gives an overview of the main soils of Papua and is based on surveys and older work such as a soil map of New Guinea by Haantjens et al. (1967) with extrapolations from more intensively studied agricultural...

New Guinea's mountains provide an important case study for understanding early modern human environmental adaptability and early developments leading to agriculture. Evidence is presented showing that human colonization pre-dated 35ka (ka = thousands of uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present) and was accompanied by landscape modification usi...

Telefomin lies in a mid-montane area and provides an opportunity to study the influences of climatic change and forest clearance by man on a presettlement forest. Reconnaissance studies based on pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating of soil cores suggest that 3 forest clearances have taken place in the last 20 000 yr. It is difficult to separate t...

Abstract A discontinuous record of vegetation over the past 7500 years was obtained through pollen analysis of pond sediments from an extensive treeless plain on the relatively dry Central Plateau of Tasmania. The results demonstrate continuity of treeless conditions, which probably persisted from the Pleistocene throughout the Holocene, up to the...

Aim To determine the soil characteristics of Nothofagus-dominated rain forests in an ultramafic region (i.e. soils having high concentrations of metals including Mg, Fe and Ni), and whether soil characteristics may explain the location of monodominant rain forest in relation to adjacent mixed rain forest and maquis (shrub-dominated vegetation). Loc...

The orthodox archaeological sequence at the Sigatoka Dunes site (VL 16/1) in Fiji proposes three phases of occupation spanning Fijian prehistory, each associated with a period of dune stability. It has been taken as the standard model of Fijian prehistory for more than 30 years. Recently, however, it has been argued that there is no stratigraphic s...

An account of human exploitation of an evolving coastal estuary in southern New South Wales, Australia.

A pollen record from Lake Xere Wapo, southeast New Caledonia, is the longest continuous terrestrial record to be recovered from the tropical southwest Pacific and reveals a series of millennial scale changes in vegetation over the last ∼130,000 yr. A comparison of the Lake Xere Wapo record with the key northeast Australian record of Lynch's Crater...

The equatorial peatlands of the Kutai lowland of eastern Kalimantan are generally 4–10 m in thickness but some sections exceed 16 m in depth. The deposition of peat commenced about 8000 yrs ago after shallow flooding of the basin by the Mahakam River. The earliest vegetation is a Pandanus swamp which grades upwards to swamp forest dominated by dipt...

Geomorphological mapping and lake-core data from Mt. Jaya, western New Guinea, show that Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) glaciation was less extensive than previously thought. Average equilibrium line altitudes (ELAs), calculated using the area–altitude-balance ratio method, for minimum and maximum ice configurations were 4050±49 and 4000±56 m a.s.l., r...

Nothofagus subgenus Brassospora now occurs only in New Guinea and New Caledonia, but is well known from fossil deposits of South America, New Zealand, Antarctica and Australia. It is commonly used for palaeoclimatic interpretation, but the climate characteristics of the extant species have not been described. In this paper we used the climatic esti...

A great variety of peatlands occur throughout the Australasian region from the oceanic sub-Antarctic to temperate and tropical lowland and mountain environments. They include significant are-as of blanket bogs on subantarctic islands, southwestern New Zealand and high altitude New Guinea and shallow peat moorlands of maritime Tasmania. More widespr...

This paper examines the history of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens in the Austral-Asian region bisected by the PEP II (Pole–Equator–Pole) transect, from Siberian Russia, south through Asia, insular Southeast Asia, Australasia and Oceania. Current evidence is reviewed for the timing of the arrival of humans along PEP II, their subsequent expansion thr...