The tooth-billed bowerbird gave itself away with a not-quite-right call. Suspicious, I’d panned my binoculars toward the sound and there he was, the mimic, high in the canopy of a rainforest tree. It was a satisfying sight. Like many of Australia’s wet tropics-endemic species, tooth-billed bowerbird populations have declined rapidly in recent years, their climate […]
Abstract
We report a comprehensive inventory of Be-based basin-wide denudation rates (n = 160) and Al/ Be ratios (n = 67) from 48 drainage basins along a 3000 km stretch of the East Australian passive continental margin. We provide data from both basins draining east of the continental divide (n = 37) and discharging into the Tasman and Coral Seas, and from basins draining to the west as part of the larger Murray-Darling and Lake Eyre river systems (n = 11). Be-derived denudation rates in mainstem samples from east-draining basins range between 7.7 ± 1.9 (± 1σ; Mary) and 54.6 ± 13.7 mm kyr (North Johnstone). Denudation rates in tributary samples range between 3.0 ± 0.7 (Burdekin) and 70.2 ± 18.9 mm kyr (Liverpool). For west-draining basins, denudation rates are overall lower and with a more restricted range of 4.8 ± 1.2 (Barcoo) to 15.4 ± 3.6 mm kyr (Maranoa) in mainstem samples, and between 4.4 ± 1.0 (Murrumbidgee) and 38.5 ± 7.8 mm kyr (Murray) in tributary sample