Death of a palaeochannel: slow abandonment of an avulsed channel on the Riverine Plains, SE Australia

Abstract

AbstractAvulsion of rivers can be a gradual process that is associated with a metamorphosis of channel pattern or changed channel characteristics. The processes controlling avulsion, and hence anastomosis, often operate too slowly to study by measuring active river systems, and hence well preserved Late Quaternary rivers offer one of the best ways to study the long-term development of avulsive systems. The modern and ancient channels of the Murrumbidgee River provide a classic example of long-lived, semi-static anastomosis, operating on timescales that include stadial and interstadial climate cycles. Over the last glacial cycle, regional avulsions have occurred every ~ 12 ka while maintaining an anastomosing pattern through the slow infill of abandoned channels. The Yanco Creek Palaeochannel System emerged from a period of high discharge linked to snowmelt in the terminal Pleistocene. Here, geomorphological mapping of the Yanco System was conducted together with single-grain, optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments in the channel belt. Since the main phase of channel construction during the Last Glacial Maximum, the Yanco system has functioned as a flood conduit and minor anabranch of the Murrumbidgee River, with reworking of ancient channel sediments by an underfit stream that is ongoing to the present day. Our new ages of ~ 13–14 ka are interpreted as channel sedimentation during an underfit phase following avulsion. The prevalence of full and partial avulsion in this environment may be complicating palaeohydrological interpretations of ages for channel activity, and reworking has gone unrecognised. We contend that some previous interpretations of the significance of ages for sediments collected from Riverine Plain palaeochannels may need revision.