Media release

From: The University of Queensland

A previously unrecognised sedimentary archive in sand dunes could unlock a repository of fire records, a discovery that could expand fire histories across the globe.

The research, conducted by Dr Nicholas Patton during his PhD at The University of Queensland, has solved a persistent problem facing historians investigating changing fire patterns.

“Knowing how the frequency and intensity of wildfires has changed over time offers scientists a glimpse into Earth’s past landscapes, as well as an understanding of future climate change impacts,” Dr Patton said.

“To reconstruct fire records, researchers usually rely heavily on sediment records from lake beds, but this means that fire histories from dryland regions are often overlooked.”

“We’ve now shown that sand dunes can serve as repositories of fire history and aid in expanding scientific understanding of fire regimes around the world.”

The study is the first to systematically examine sedimentary records preserved in foot-slope deposits of sand dunes – specifically, four sand dunes at the Cooloola Sand Mass in Queensland, looking at approximately 12,000 years of history.

The researchers aimed to prove that these sand dune deposits could be used to reconstruct reliable, multi-millennial fire histories.

“The Cooloola Sand Mass consists of large sand dunes that were created off the coast and moved inland from the power of the wind,” Dr Patton said.

“We were digging soil pits at the base of the dunes and were seeing a lot of charcoal – more charcoal than we expected.

“And we thought maybe we could utilise these deposits to reconstruct local fires within the area.”

They were correct, and were delighted to see that their dune-based fire history findings successfully matched other fire records from the region found in lake and swamp deposits.

“We found that on the younger dunes – at 500 years old and 2,000 years old – charcoal layers represented individual fires, because the steep slope of the dunes quickly buried each layer,” Dr Patton said.

“However, the older dunes – at 5,000 years old and 10,000 years old – had more gradual slopes that blended charcoal from different fires over time, providing a better understanding of periods of increased or decreased fire frequency.”

The dunes offered localised fire histories from within an approximate 100-meter radius, so fire records varied somewhat amongst the four dunes, which spanned approximately two kilometres.

“Similar records are likely held in sand dunes around the world, and regions like California and the Southwest U.S. could benefit from a better understanding of regional fire history,” Dr Patton said.

“Embedded within the fire records is not only information about natural wildfires, but also the way that humans influenced fire regimes.

“Fire histories are important for understanding how fire was used in the past for cultural purposes, whether that was to clear fields for agriculture or for hunting.

“These records have the potential to unlock the role climate and/or Indigenous peoples had on the landscape from regions where they are rare or absent.

“It would be exciting to see this work extended into the Kimberley and the dune areas along the northern Australian coast where humans have lived for tens of thousands of years.”

The research was conducted between UQ, The University of Canterbury and the Desert Research Institute.

It is published in Quaternary Research.

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Wildfire clues uncovered in ancient sand dunes

Valuable new information about the future risk of wildfires has been discovered in Australian sand dunes where researchers have uncovered the remnants of fires lit thousands of years ago.

An international research team led by Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) Earth and Environment PhD graduate Nicholas Patton and UC School of Earth and Environment Professor Jamie Shulmeister has studied the sand dunes at the Cooloola Sand Mass in Queensland, an extremely fire-prone landscape.

Dr Patton, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada, the United States, says charcoal deposits uncovered in sand dunes at Cooloola can be used to reconstruct reliable fire histories going back thousands of years. The four sand dunes date back 12,000 years and reveal three major periods of fire activity.

“Charcoal has accumulated at the foot of a dune after a fire and been gradually buried by layers of sand, creating a time-capsule effect,” Dr Patton says. “These sediments can be dated using radiocarbon dating, providing an accurate record of past fires in the area.”

Most environmental records of fires have typically been found in places that are very wet, such as bogs and small lakes. “As a result, many areas with high fire risk, such as parts of Australia, California and the Mediterranean, have poorly understood natural fire regimes.”

Professor Shulmeister says the new research, published this week in the journal Quaternary Research, is critical because the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 in Australia highlighted that fires are possible on much larger scales and greater intensities than had previously been imagined.

“Here in New Zealand, recent dangerous wildfires at Lake Ohau and in Northland have demonstrated that our bush is also more susceptible to uncontrolled burning.  Understanding how, why and when these fires might occur is important for the future management of wildfire risk, particularly in areas such as Central Otago that have a dry climate and a high potential fire risk.”

Dr Patton says the work is ground-breaking in demonstrating that sand dunes can act as archives for fire history. “We believe our approach could be applied to dunes in arid and semi-arid regions and could revolutionise our understanding of past fires, modern fire risk and future fire management.”

The study is a collaboration between researchers at Lincoln University, the University of Queensland, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and Utah State University in the United States.