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Vegetation and climate of the late Cainozoic in the Murray Basin and their bearing on the salinity problem

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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The Murray Basin was forested throughout the Tertiary, becoming open woodlands and grasslands in Plio-Pleistocene time. Precipitation was very high through the early Tertiary, with step-like decreases beginning in the late Oligocene- early Miocene. In the mid-late Miocene. widespread rainforest disappeared and was replaced with eucalypt wet sclerophyll forest which was burnt on a regular basis. For a brief interval in the late Miocene- early Pliocene, there is a resurgence of Nothofagus (the Nothofagus phase) which forms a well defined stratigraphic horizon. The Nothofagus phase is well marked in the major river systems of the western slopes of the Eastern Highlands, but it has also been found in the western Murray Basin. The climate was wetter at this time, which is thought to correlate with the late Miocene- early Pliocene maximum marine transgression. An assemblage with a high chenopod type and Asteraceae pollen content is deceptively like modern assemblages of arid regions, but close examination reveals a salt-marsh environment associated with the early mid Miocene marine transgression. Throughout the Tertiary and into the early Pleistocene, the only indications of salinity are associated with marine / marginal marine environments. There is no evidence of dryland salinity, as seen today.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Vegetation and climate of the late Cainozoic in the Murray Basin and their bearing on the salinity problem
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/4219947f-7650-4dc5-81e3-bc8d9654bb18
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        138.6,
        -37.71
      ],
      [
        145.76,
        -37.71
      ],
      [
        145.76,
        -31.08
      ],
      [
        138.6,
        -31.08
      ],
      [
        138.6,
        -37.71
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Vegetation and climate of the late Cainozoic in the Murray Basin and their bearing on the salinity problem". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/vegetation-and-climate-of-the-late-cainozoic-in-the-murray-basin-and-their-bearing-on-the-salin