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Freshwater is a critical input to estuaries but is under increasing demand to support upstream human activities. In this study, otolith biochronology was used to quantify the relationship between river discharge and juvenile growth rates of barramundi (Lates calcarifer) in three regions of the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. In all regions, river discharge had a strong positive effect on juvenile growth rates. Models were also developed which incorporated the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO). SOI values corresponding to La Nina events had strong positive consequences for juvenile barramundi growth rates in all regions, and the intensity of positive wet season MJO pulses had a strong positive effect on growth rates in the perennially flowing river, but not the intermittently flowing rivers. The consequences of three hypothetical water development scenarios were estimated for the perennial river. The model predicted a 12%, 8% and 1% reduction in annual barramundi growth rates under proposed scenarios for 18%, 8%, and 3% reduction in river discharge, respectively. Fish growth is a robust, quantitative metric that can be monitored pre and post water resource development to identify the least impactful development scenario and monitor its compliance and success through time.

The age of whole otoliths from barramundi (Lates calcarifer) obtained from the southern Gulf of Carpentaria were estimated using Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy. Otoliths from 1716 barramundi collected in 2006, 2009 and 2012–2015 were used in this study. Partial least-squares regression models (PLS-R) and multiple linear regression models (MLR) were developed from the diffuse reflectance spectra and the age was obtained from traditional sectioned otoliths. Calibration models were built up over consecutive years (2012–2015) by using a subset of the samples and used to predict the age of the remaining samples and samples from the following year. Results suggest that when seasonal (temporal) variability is incorporated into the calibration model, FT-NIR has the ability to predict barramundi age (validation R2 ranged from 0.73 to 0.78; RMSEP ranged from 6.92 to 7.64 months). The predicted age class was within 1 year of the reference age in over 96% of the samples. These models were also able to predict the age of otoliths from 2006 and 2009, which were retrieved from long-term storage (validation R2 ranged from 0.77 to 0.84; RMSEP ranged from 8.66 to 10.88 months). The results from this study have shown the potential for barramundi from the southern Gulf of Carpentaria to be aged quickly and accurately by using FT-NIR.

Penaeid prawns (shrimp) are short-lived and fecund, with a complicated life cycle that includes offshore spawning followed by a coastal or estuarine postlarval and juvenile phase. Factors affecting survival during the early life-history stages, and during movement between these stages, will affect variability in recruitment to the nursery ground, the offshore subadult and adult population, and, ultimately, catch. The inability to predict recruitment, and ultimately commercial offshore catch, has been complicated by an incomplete understanding of these factors. The reproductive dynamics of Penaeus (Fenneropenaeus) merguiensis were investigated by simultaneous adult and larval sampling on 66 lunar-monthly surveys from March 1986 to March 1992 in Albatross Bay, northeastern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. Egg production was seasonal, with the highest production from 6-mo-old newly recruited spawners, and another peak from 12mo-old spawners. Larval abundance (no. m-2) followed the same seasonal pattern as the abundance of eggs. However, interannual variation in egg and larval abundance was large, and there was a weak correlation between monthly egg and larval abundance. Larval abundance appeared to be further influenced by fluctuations in chlorophyll a concentration, a measure of food availability. There was evidence of a match/mismatch relationship between larval abundance and episodic chlorophyll increases. While there was no direct spawner (egg production)-fishery recruit relationship in P. merguiensis over the 6-yr study, there was a strong relationship between total larval abundance in spring and the size of the commercial catch 3 to 6 mo later. Therefore, factors affecting larval survival, including food availability, have significant implications for fishery production.

Although Jurassic-Early Cretaceous sedimentary systems were extensively developed on northeastern Gondwana, deciphering their paleogeography has been complicated by poor exposure and the lack of a robust chronostratigraphic framework. The southeastern margin of the Carpentaria Basin, northeastern Australia is one of the few regions where these sedimentary systems are extensively exposed. Employing a combination of facies analysis and new data from paleontology and detrital zircon geochronology, we present a temporally and environmentally refined paleogeographic framework for this region. A Late Jurassic, southeasterly directed marine incursion invaded northeastern Gondwana, extending inland across the Carpentaria Basin, as demonstrated by a thin (~30 m), marine influenced (fluvio-estuarine) stratigraphic succession capped by a sequence bounding ~30 myr paraconformity. The depositional hiatus marked the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous uplift of the Euroka Arch, with loss of sedimentary and fluvial connectivity between the Carpentaria Basin and adjoining Eromanga Basin. Subsequent deposition by low-accommodation fluvial systems resulted in a thin, fluviatile depositional package developing during the Early Cretaceous. Paleocurrent and provenance data indicate that the Middle to Late Jurassic (c. 170–160 Ma) fluvial systems predating the paraconformity extended from the Eromanga Basin to the south across the southeastern Carpentaria Basin, transporting sediment from distal sources in the Lachlan Orogen of southeastern Australia. Fluvial systems of the southeastern Carpentaria Basin post-dating the paraconformity and Euroka Arch uplift show a provenance shift to easterly sources in the Mossman Orogen and Kennedy Igneous Association. Previously unrecognised Jurassic-Early Cretaceous igneous activity provided a persistent source of sediment to the southeastern Carpentaria Basin succession due to reworking of air fall tuff from an active magmatic arc located on the continental margin of northeastern Gondwana.

A combination of elemental analysis, bulk stable isotope analysis (bulk SIA) and compound-specific stable isotope analysis of amino acids (CSIA-AA) was used to assess and monitor carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) cycling of a mangrove ecosystem that suffered mass dieback of trees in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia in 2015–2016, attributed to an extreme drought event. Three field campaigns were conducted 8, 20 and 32 months after the event over a period from 2016 to 2018 to obtain biological time-series data. Invertebrates and associated organic matter including mangroves and sediments from the impacted ecosystem showed enrichment in 13C, 15N and 34S relative to those from an adjacent unimpacted reference ecosystem, likely indicating lower mangrove carbon fixation, lower nitrogen fixation and lower sulfate reduction in the impacted ecosystem. For example, invertebrates representing the feeding types of grazing, leaf feeding and algae feeding were more 13C enriched at the impacted site, by 1.7 ‰–4.1 ‰, and these differences did not change over the period from 2016 to 2018. The CSIA-AA data indicated widespread 13C enrichment across five essential amino acids and all groups sampled (except filter feeders) within the impacted site. The seedling density increased from 0.2 m−2 in 2016 to 7.1 m−2 in 2018 in the impacted forest, suggesting recovery of the vegetation. Recovery of CNS cycling, however, was not evident even after 32 months, suggesting a biogeochemical legacy of the mortality event. Continued monitoring of the post-dieback forest is required to predict the long-term trajectory of ecosystem recovery. This study shows that time-series SIA can track biogeochemical changes over time and evaluate recovery of an impacted ecosystem from an extreme event.

Heterocotyle whittingtoni n. sp. (Monogenea: Monocotylidae) is described from the gills of the black-spotted whipray Maculabatis toshi (Whitley) (Dasyatidae) collected from Moreton Bay near Dunwich and Peel Island, and from the eastern Gulf of Carpentaria off Weipa, Queensland, Australia. Heterocotyle whittingtoni n. sp. has a single sinuous ridge surmounting the haptoral septa and the male copulatory organ lacks an accessory piece. The new species can be distinguished from the two other Heterocotyle species that have this combination of characters by the distal portion of the male copulatory organ which is slightly flared with uniquely thickened walls and by the morphology of the testis. The identity of the host of H. whittingtoni n. sp. is discussed. We confirm that the host of the monocotylids Dendromonocotyle lasti Chisholm & Whittington, 2005 and Monocotyle caseyae Chisholm & Whittington, 2005 originally identified as "Himantura sp." was M. toshi.

A massive mangrove dieback event occurred in 2015–2016 along ∼1000 km of pristine coastline in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. Here, we use sediment and wood chronologies to gain insights into geochemical and climatic changes related to this dieback. The unique combination of low rainfall and low sea level observed during the dieback event had been unprecedented in the preceding 3 decades. A combination of iron (Fe) chronologies in wood and sediment, wood density and estimates of mangrove water use efficiency all imply lower water availability within the dead mangrove forest. Wood and sediment chronologies suggest a rapid, large mobilization of sedimentary Fe, which is consistent with redox transitions promoted by changes in soil moisture content. Elemental analysis of wood cross sections revealed a 30- to 90-fold increase in Fe concentrations in dead mangroves just prior to their mortality. Mangrove wood uptake of Fe during the dieback is consistent with large apparent losses of Fe from sediments, which potentially caused an outwelling of Fe to the ocean. Although Fe toxicity may also have played a role in the dieback, this possibility requires further study. We suggest that differences in wood and sedimentary Fe between living and dead forest areas reflect sediment redox transitions that are, in turn, associated with regional variability in groundwater flows. Overall, our observations provide multiple lines of evidence that the forest dieback was driven by low water availability coinciding with a strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event and was associated with climate change.

The effect of synthetic ‘bogus’ tropical cyclone (TC) central pressure observations on TC Owen was tested in a convective-scale numerical weather prediction (NWP) system with hourly 4D-Var assimilation. TC Owen traversed the Gulf of Carpentaria over 10–14 December 2018, entering from the east and briefly making landfall on the western edge before reversing course and retracing its path east to cross the northern tip of Queensland. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology runs a high-resolution NWP model centred over Darwin, which covers much of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The next-generation developmental version of this model includes data assimilation. Therefore, when TC Owen presented the opportunity to investigate the simulation of a TC within the domain, the developmental system was run as a case study. The modelled cyclone initially failed to intensify. The case study was then repeated including assimilation of bogus central pressure observations. This new run showed a large improvement in the intensity throughout the simulation; however, the TC track was not substantially improved. This demonstration of the potential impact of using synthetic observations may guide whether the development of a bogus observation source with sufficiently low latency for use in an hourly-cycling system should be prioritised.

During the strong El Nino event of 2015-2016 large-scale dieback of mangrove forests was observed in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia. These and other intertidal communities are also extensive along the 7,400 km coastline of north-eastern Australia. Determination of their floristic composition, potential carbon (C) store and sequestration capacity, and vulnerability to climate extremes is required for their effective conservation management and was the aim of this study. Standardized, state-wide quantitative classification methods identified five mangrove forest and three saltmarsh communities covering 2,604 km(2)along this coastline. Estuarine and oceanic mangrove forests were mapped separately. Carbon storage and sequestration capacity of the intertidal communities and their vulnerability to strong El Nino events were estimated using published data and GIS analyses. An estimated potential 126.2 (+/- 27.3 SEM) Tg C and 8.3 (+/- 0.4 SD) Tg C were stored in the mangrove forests and saltmarshes, respectively. Comparatively, the rainforests of the region stored an estimated equivalent amount of C but covered three times the area, and the most widespread woodlands (Eucalyptus tetrodonta) of the region stored an estimated 1.5 times the C but covered 16 times the area. The C stored in the intertidal communities was estimated as equivalent to 493.47 Tg of CO(2,)valued at AU$6.8 billion on the Australian carbon market in December 2018. Annual C sequestration potential was 0.18-0.34 Tg C/year, valued between AU$8.9 and $17 million. Approximately 360 ha of mangrove forest was estimated as lost because of dieback during the 2015-16 El Nino event. Three types of mangrove forest were identified as potentially vulnerable to dieback from El Nino-driven climate events. This study highlights the national and global significance of these intertidal systems and our findings need to be incorporated in future conservation and development planning of northern Australia.

The dominant history of Australia has always reflected the beauty and abundance of its aboriginal world,in dim light. An analysis of the literary canon too proves this lack of acknowledgement and understanding, of the native ways of life and identity formations. Carpentaria by Alexis Wright challenges the very notion of history as a single strand of chronologically ordered set of events. When besieged memories are evoked new traces of memory surface shedding new light on the past. It initiates a process rewriting history. Postmodern historiography today accepts the subjectivity and literariness of histories. Only a thin line exists between history and fiction. In a nation’s narrative, memory is a trope that foregrounds the polyphonic voices of the nation. The imaginary town of Desperance in Carpentaria is a microcosm of the Australian society. It is here, truth and appropriations crisscross to create a true picture of the Australian society.

A new population of eastern short eared rock-wallaby (Petrogale wilkinsi) has been recorded in Queensland. The animals were photographed on a sandstone cliff face in Lawn Hill Gorge, Boodjamulla National Park, ~160 km from the closest record on Wollogorang Station in the Northern Territory. The species was originally thought to occur north of the 600-mm rainfall isohyet, with most of the population found in the monsoonal tropics of the Top End. This record significantly extends the known range of this taxon to the south-east and places P. wilkinsi at the 450-mm rainfall isohyet. Sympatry in rock-wallabies is unusual but P. wilkinsi at Boodjamulla appears to be sympatric with the more common purple necked rock-wallaby (Petrogale purpureicollis). A recent taxonomic revision of the brachyotis group found that there was a significant mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) divergence between the Wollogorang record and the rest of the P. wilkinsi group further north, but further genetic sampling across the southern Gulf of Carpentaria is required to determine whether these populations represent an additional distinct taxon.

Recent survey in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia has identified a unique assemblage of miniature and small-scale stencilled motifs depicting anthropomorphs, material culture, macropod tracks and linear designs. The unusual sizes and shapes of these motifs raise questions about the types of material used for the stencil templates. Drawing on ethnographic data and experimental archaeology, the authors argue that the motifs were created with a previously undocumented stencilling technique using miniature models sculpted from beeswax. The results suggest that beeswax and other malleable and adhesive resins may have played a more significant role in creating stencilled motifs than previously thought.

Through applying an Indigenous paradigmatic approach to reading Australian Indigenous literature, a new conceptualisation of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria emerges, one that argues the novel is a practice in Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing). The form of the novel is considered, conceptualising Carpentaria’s Indigenous grand narrative voice as a praxis in Indigenous knowledge production, maintenance, and dissemination. This argument is supported by the configuration of Carpentaria’s content – the stories told within the text – as Indigenous knowledges.

This paper analyzes the way in which Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria recreates the space of Indigenous country. Looking at the environment and the focus on locality from a regional perspective, I argue that geographic space is used as a subversive place of reality and history so that Indigeneity is a matter of intersubjective relations (M. Langton) and is constantly conceptualized in a process of dialogue, representation, and imagination. I thus examine the focal positioning of the natural environment to show how the manifestation of place and Dreaming tracks annihilate an imagined colonial reality and tend to reconfigure the postcolonial present.

The Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright has developed a novelistic oeuvre that experiments with written forms of fiction, and paints an Aboriginal universe that does not need European epistemology to sustain itself. Rather, it questions western values, certainties, and convictions and problematizes the western way of seeing and doing in the island-continent. Her latest novel, The Swan Book, in manifesting its spiritual and mystical connections to the holistic universe known as the Dreamtime, foregrounds this epistemological turn, which is premised on the ontological relationship Aboriginal people have with “Country,” their traditional land. Alexis Wright’s fiction, which she herself has called an instance of “Aboriginal reality” or “Aboriginal realism,” as opposed to magic realism, is an epic tour de force that juxtaposes the Indigenous and European traditions in startling ways but also speaks across a cultural divide – the discursive gap between colonized and colonizer, belonging and non-belonging, assimilation and sovereignty – which this essay will address.

This paper revolves around the core principles of story-creation as defined by First Peoples in Australia. It focusses on the many dimensions of this distinctive narrative approach in Alexis Wright’s magnum opus, Carpentaria (2005). Indigenous Australian notions of time, place and story-making are crucial to the argument. Finally, the paper interrogates the links between the poetic and story-telling oeuvre of the famous Indigenous Australian leader and poet of the 1960s and 1970s – Oodgeroo – and the masterful novelistic approach to story-telling exemplified by Carpentaria.

The close relationship Aboriginal people have with the land is a deep spiritual interconnected map in the mind. Alexis Wright, “A Self-Governing Literature” (2020) The inclusion of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006) in the core syllabus (tronc commun) of the 2022 Agrégation competitive exam – for both the “internal” and “external” examination – is a cause for celebration. Before the inclusion of Carpentaria, Australian literature had featured only once in the national syllabus, in the literar...

A number of critics have deployed the generic category of magical realism in reading Alexis Wright’s novel, Carpentaria. While accepting that the novel has something in common with this generic classification and a relation to texts and writers associated with it, this essay seeks to show the limitations inherent in reducing Carpentaria to this (or other) generic classifications. While Carpentaria enacts and explores elements of the representation of time and the sacred that are congruent to magical realism, it also refuses to be reduced to either magical realism or genre as such.

Although many critics have emphasized the tragic and political dimension of Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006), this article focuses on the novel’s use of humor and a comic structure in exploring Desperance, an isolated town in the North of Australia. An Indigenous narrator sets the humorous tone, conveying stories light and dark centered on the residents of Pricklebush, the Indigenous settlement on the fringe: their conflicts with each other; their vexed relations with Uptown, the white section; and their relationship with the powerful Gurfurritt mine. Despite the novel’s dark episodes, its comic dimension fulfills the promise of a finale defined by hope.

Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria was translated by Li Yao into Chinese in 2012. The following text describes Li Yao’s personal reflections on this translation, the reasons for Carpentaria’s success in China, and connected projects that the translation has led to. Beside promoting Aboriginal literature in China, translating Carpentaria has allowed Li Yao to build connections with Alexis Wright, as well as with fellow academics working in other Chinese universities and Chinese artists living in China and abroad.

While G.S. Fraser sees good free verse as “verse which does not scan regularly but seems always on the verge of scanning regularly” (1970, 74), I argue that Alexis Wright’s epic prose in Carpentaria sounds as if it were verging on poetry from the English tradition, blended with a local Indigenous oral tradition and Waanyi language. Using structuring devices occasionally borrowed from the English poetic tradition as well as from Waanyi, her prose achieves mnemonic functions, inscribing the novel as a memorial epic in a new epic diction, and glorifying the act of writing, as well as the use of orality.

Why is Carpentaria so challenging – yet so liberating – to read? How can Carpentaria deal so frankly with trauma and tragedy – yet be so healing and hope-inspiring? Answers to those paradoxes are ventured by this article, which suggests that Carpentaria’s narrative style replicates a psychological effect of oral storytelling, remaking the conventional literary experience of reading a novel.

The influence of climate change and anthropogenic activities (e.g., water withdrawals) on groundwater basins has gained attention recently across the globe. However, the understanding of hydrological stores (e.g., groundwater storage) in one of the largest and deepest artesian basins, the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is limited due to the poor distribution of groundwater monitoring bores. In this study, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite and ancillary data from observations and models (soil moisture, rainfall, and evapotranspiration (ET)) were used to assess changes in terrestrial water storage and groundwater storage (GWS) variations across the GAB and its sub-basins (Carpentaria, Surat, Western Eromanga, and Central Eromanga). Results show that there is strong relationship of GWS variation with rainfall (r = 0.9) and ET (r = 0.9 to 1) in the Surat and some parts of the Carpentaria sub-basin in the GAB (2002–2017). Using multi-variate methods, we found that variation in GWS is primarily driven by rainfall in the Carpentaria sub-basin. While changes in rainfall account for much of the observed spatio-temporal distribution of water storage changes in Carpentaria and some parts of the Surat sub-basin (r = 0.90 at 0–2 months lag), the relationship of GWS with rainfall and ET in Central Eromanga sub-basin (r = 0.10–0.30 at more than 12 months lag) suggest the effects of human water extraction in the GAB.

This study investigates the underlying climate processes behind the largest recorded mangrove dieback event along the Gulf of Carpentaria coast in northern Australia in late 2015. Using satellite-derived fractional canopy cover (FCC), variation of the mangrove canopies during recent decades are studied, including a severe dieback during 2015–2016. The relationship between mangrove FCC and climate conditions is examined with a focus on the possible role of the 2015–2016 El Niño in altering favorable conditions sustaining the mangroves. The mangrove FCC is shown to be coherent with the low-frequency component of sea level height (SLH) variation related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle in the equatorial Pacific. The SLH drop associated with the 2015–2016 El Niño is identified to be the crucial factor leading to the dieback event. A stronger SLH drop occurred during austral autumn and winter, when the SLH anomalies were about 12% stronger than the previous very strong El Niño events. The persistent SLH drop occurred in the dry season of the year when SLH was seasonally at its lowest, so potentially exposed the mangroves to unprecedented hostile conditions. The influence of other key climate factors is also discussed, and a multiple linear regression model is developed to understand the combined role of the important climate variables on the mangrove FCC variation.

Extreme climatic events can trigger sudden but often long‐lasting impacts in ecosystems by causing near to complete mortality of foundation (habitat‐forming) species. The magnitude and frequency of such events are expected to rise due to anthropogenic climate change, but the impacts that such events have on many foundation species and the ecosystems that they support remains poorly understood. In many cases, manipulative experimentation is extremely challenging and rarely feasible at a large scale. In late 2015 to early 2016, an extensive area of mangrove forest along ∼ 1000 km of coastline in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, experienced severe dieback, an event associated with climatic extremes. To assess the effect this dieback event had on the mangrove ecosystem, we assessed benthic faunal assemblages and food web structure using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in a comparative experiment of impacted forest and adjacent unimpacted forest. Eighteen months after the dieback, the forest that suffered dieback contained significantly fewer crabs that rely on mangrove litter food source but more crabs that rely on microphytobenthos food source than the unimpacted forest. However, the infaunal biomass was largely unaffected by the mortality effect. This is most likely because microphytobenthos was largely unaffected and consequently, this buffered the food web responses. However, overall, the habitat value for mangrove ecosystem services most likely decreased due to lower physical habitat complexity following tree mortality. Longer‐term monitoring could lead to better understanding of biological effects of this extreme event and underlying biological mechanisms that drive changes and recovery.

A defined hydrogeological basin is convenient for understanding and classifying groundwater systems. However, groundwater flow results generally from pressure and density gradients and may pass through boundaries defined by hydrostratigraphy. Earlier conceptual models of Australia’s Great Artesian Basin (GAB) ascribed all artesian water in the region to the GAB. Although this may have facilitated regulation and control of groundwater usage, it created an unwieldy and unpredictable boundary definition for the GAB. As the understanding of hydrodynamics in the GAB steadily grows, so does the appreciation of interconnectedness of this Jurassic-Cretaceous system with underlying sedimentary basins and overlying cover. In 2012, the definition of the GAB as a hydrogeological basin was modified to align with the Eromanga, Surat and Carpentaria geological basins to simplify this issue for the GAB Water Resource Assessment (GABWRA). This revised definition has since been broadly adopted and remains in use; however, this definition has necessitated a more consistent regional understanding of connectivity with deeper basins that have been of increasing interest and importance for the exploitation of petroleum and gas reserves. Extraction commonly produces groundwater as a by-product, modifying pressure in the host reservoir and potentially in adjoining aquifers, as well as causing possible contamination through fluid transfer. Twenty-seven sedimentary basins are currently known to underlie the GAB and this number is steadily growing through regional seismic studies and exploration.

Projections of sea level rise (SLR) will lead to increasing coastal impacts during extreme sea level events globally; however, there is significant uncertainty around short-term coastal sea level variability and the attendant frequency and severity of extreme sea level events. In this study, we investigate drivers of coastal sea level variability (including extremes) around Australia by means of historical conditions as well as future changes under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario (RCP 8.5). To do this, a multi-decade hindcast simulation is validated against tide gauge data. The role of tide–surge interaction is assessed and found to have negligible effects on storm surge characteristic heights over most of the coastline. For future projections, 20-year-long simulations are carried out over the time periods 1981–1999 and 2081–2099 using atmospheric forcing from four CMIP5 climate models. Changes in extreme sea levels are apparent, but there are large inter-model differences. On the southern mainland coast all models simulated a southward movement of the subtropical ridge which led to a small reduction in sea level extremes in the hydrodynamic simulations. Sea level changes over the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north are largest and positive during austral summer in two out of the four models. In these models, changes to the northwest monsoon appear to be the cause of the sea level response. These simulations highlight a sensitivity of this semi-enclosed gulf to changes in large-scale dynamics in this region and indicate that further assessment of the potential changes to the northwest monsoon in a larger multi-model ensemble should be investigated, together with the northwest monsoon's effect on extreme sea levels.

This article considers Alexis Wright’s 2006 novel Carpentaria in relation to climate change and temporality. Through an appraisal of previous critical work on the novel, an analysis of its anti-lin...

Uranium (U) isotopes are useful for constraining the timescales of weathering and erosion processes. The (234U/238U) activity ratio (parentheses denote activity ratio) of fine-grained detrital minerals is proposed to record the time elapsed since mineral grains were reduced to

Alexis Wright is an acclaimed Australian author as well as a dedicated activist for indigenous sovereignty. In her most recent novel, The Swan Book (2013), Wright contextualises climate change and the extinction anxieties Western urbanized audiences are finding increasingly difficult to ignore within the time frame of the European settlement of Australia, and the much larger time frame of Aboriginal presence on Country. Wright weaves together the memory of the 2007 Emergency Response in the Northern Territory and the perspective of a global climate crisis to provide a narrative that resists both the shortcuts of emergency action and the fascination with end times.

A vast area of more than 80 km2 (6–10% of total) of mangrove forests bordering Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria died en masse in late 2015 and early 2016. The dieback occurred over a number of months in synchrony across more than 1500 km of exposed Gulf shorelines. There are serious concerns about the implications of such an event given the important ecological and economic services provided by mangrove ecosystems, and the challenges to policy and management of such an abrupt loss of natural resources at both local and regional scales. In this chapter, we begin by structuring and quantifying the distinct and complex mix of processes involved in the natural establishment, growth, and development of mangrove stands in the context of enhanced environmental variability. Based on these findings, we develop a new evaluation framework to explain the severe response observed in late 2015 in mangroves of the Gulf of Carpentaria. We explore in detail the multiple drivers involved in the event and address the complex question of the role of climate change. These analyses and other observations about this unique event are brought together to assist the ongoing development and implementation of effective management policy, starting with monitoring programs at national and local scales. While this is a work in progress, these findings already provide unequivocal evidence that mangroves are vulnerable and acutely sensitive to extreme variations in sea level and climate change.

After several months’ stay in Port Jackson (Sydney), the Investigator left on July 22, 1802, to explore the northern part of Australia including the Great Barrier Reef. Brown collected a total of 49 angiosperm species from excursions in the Port Curtis area, i.e., the southern end of Curtis Island; Brown explored the northern end of Curtis Island (at Sea Hill), and found a few new species of plants such as a coastal cedar, several previously unidentified Proteaceae, and white leadwort, an herb with medicinal properties. They left Keppel Bay, on the way to Broad Sound and Port Clinton, arriving on the 21st of August. Brown went ashore almost immediately after the Investigator docked, noting that the Norfolk Pine was rather reduced in size with a very ragged appearance and irregular growth. Brown also observed the geological composition and a number of plants that he previously had not seen. The ship left Port Clinton on August 24th, heading for the “Clara Group” of the Hervey Islands. Brown found blady grass (Imperata cylindrica)—a grass common in Australia’s sandy regions—and a species of Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus tereticornis. He took various mineral samples, including quartz-sericite schist and white or milky quartz he called “pure fat quartz.” Brown reported the first sighting of the Great Barrier Reef on October 4th. Brown accompanied Flinders in the whaleboat to one of the reefs, and he noted the presence of sea cucumbers (Holothuria), sea urchins, as well as common varieties of coral. They negotiated the difficult waters in the Great Barrier Reef and found passage to the open sea. After a week, the Investigator was in sight of the Torres Strait—a body of water between Cape North, Australia, and the Melanesian island of New Guinea—and they arrived at the Murray Islands. Brown made an extensive list of the plants he observed from the Murray Islands, Zuizin Island, and Halfway Island, such as beach gardenia, bay cedar, coast caper, necklace pod, various species of kelp (Fucus), and lichens. Then the Investigator sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria, a large shallow sea bounded on three sides by northern Australia, and on the north by the Arafura Sea, which lies between northern Australia and New Guinea. The Investigator anchored off the mainland in the Gulf and southwest of Bickerton Island. Brown went ashore and surveyed the area, finding a freshwater lake, a great number of plants—nearly 200, 26 of which Brown had not seen before—and animals, including small kangaroos, and birds like a variety of ducks and black crows. At Cape Shield Peninsula, Brown found a freshwater lake and observed freshwater eelgrass, several species of green algae, and water nymph. In the Mount Caledon region he noted bush gardenia, black mangrove, gray mangrove, several different types of grasses, and a number of birds such as the collared kingfisher. Because of the growing cases of scurvy and dysentery, Flinders was determined to get to Sydney as soon as possible. The Investigator spent the rest of May and the first few days of June at sea with a few brief stops at Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia, King George Sound, and Middle Island in the Archipelago of the Recherche, and finally reached Sydney on June 9th (1803).

This article proposes a reading of Alexis Wright’s epic novel Carpentaria that focuses on the mine and its impacts as central to any understanding of the novel. Carpentaria offers a stark portrayal of how resource extraction is intimately linked with both colonisation and capitalism and is sustained through state-sanctioned violence and nationalist ideologies. This article explores the dichotomy between Normal Phantom, who views mining as just another phenomenon in the vast expanse of time, and his son Will, who fights the mine on the understanding that it is an unprecedented threat to the survival of the Waanyi people and their Country. Although I suggest that this wider debate, and the forms of agency it represents, remains unresolved in the novel, I conclude with a meditation on the critically neglected character of Kevin who complicates the novel’s uneasy resolution. In the light of ongoing debates about the Adani mine, Carpentaria is more relevant than ever.

The reproductive dynamics of three species of commercially important penaeids (Penaeus merguiensis, P. semisulcatus and P. esculentus) are presented as three case histories. Reproductive output depends on the interactions of population abundance, size structure and reproductive condition. Reproductive output varies geographically and from year to year, both within and between species. In the Gulf of Carpentaria, spawning seasonality in P. semisulcatus is bimodal, with the major peak (in spring) restricted to a particular area. By contrast, P. esculentus tends to have more protracted and variable egg production. P. merguiensis has a bimodal spawning pattern, but the dominant peak occurs at a different time of year according to geographic location. Comparison of seasonal patterns of egg production with the abundance of later life history phases indicates that the periods of greatest reproductive output are not necessarily most important for stock renewal. Only periods of spawning leading to recruitment of sub-adults to the fishery should be considered when formulating management measures. In the Gulf of Carpentaria, fishing has been banned in the period prior to the spawning season in order to maximize spawning stock.

Zooplankton biomass data have been collected in Australian waters since the 1930s, yet most datasets have been unavailable to the research community. We have searched archives, scanned the primary and grey literature, and contacted researchers, to collate 49187 records of marine zooplankton biomass from waters around Australia (0–60°S, 110–160°E). Many of these datasets are relatively small, but when combined, they provide >85 years of zooplankton biomass data for Australian waters from 1932 to the present. Data have been standardised and all available metadata included. We have lodged this dataset with the Australian Ocean Data Network, allowing full public access. The Australian Zooplankton Biomass Database will be valuable for global change studies, research assessing trophic linkages, and for initialising and assessing biogeochemical and ecosystem models of lower trophic levels., Measurement(s) zooplankton biomass • organic material • planktonic material Technology Type(s) digital curation Factor Type(s) year of data collection Sample Characteristic - Organism zooplankton Sample Characteristic - Environment marine water body Sample Characteristic - Location Australia Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12651425

The new talitrid genus Carpentaria gen. nov. is described from tropical Australia. It contains two marsh-hoppers: C. limicola (Haswell, 1880) (comb. nov.) from Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef and C. tropicalis sp. nov. from Darwin, Northern Territory and Queensland.

The purpose of this thesis has been to assess and outline the diverse roles and contributions of 'foreign' (that is non-indigenous) Pacific Islanders. in the region of north-eastern Australia. (consisting the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York, and Torres Strait), and eastern New Guinea during the years 1863 to 1878. Chapter one examines Pacific Islanders and the process of colonization. Chapter two analyzes Pacific Islander involvment in the maritime industry, beche-de-mer and pearl-shell fisheries. Chapter three assesses Pacific Islanders involved in pastoralism and expeditions of exploration. Chapter four examines Pacific Islanders in the London Missionary Society and Methodist missions. Finally, chapter five assesses Pacific Islanders in the process of culture contact and social change of these regions. A brief concluding note will end this chapter.

A massive mangrove dieback event occurred in 2015/2016 along ~ 1000 km of pristine coastline in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. To gain insights into dieback drivers, we combine sediment and wood chronologies to analyze geochemical and climatic changes. The unique combination of low rainfall and low sea level observed during the dieback event was unprecedented in the previous three decades. Multiple lines of evidence from iron (Fe) chronologies in wood and sediment, wood densities and mangrove water use efficiency suggest low water availability within the dead mangrove forest. Wood and sediment chronologies suggest a rapid and large mobilization of sedimentary Fe, which was likely associated with pyrite oxidation within mangrove sediments. High resolution elemental analysis of wood cross sections revealed 30–90 fold increase in Fe concentrations in dead mangrove areas just prior to mortality. Fe concentrations in wood samples correlated strongly with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index, suggesting ENSO was a major driver of Fe mobilization. Large Fe losses from sediments during the dieback are consistent with Fe uptake in the trees, further implying sediment pyrite oxidation. If our data are representative of the entire dieback region, we estimate that the dieback drove the mobilization and loss of 50 ± 173 Gg Fe, equivalent to 8–50 % of annual global atmospheric Fe deposition into the oceans, which is one of the major drivers of surface ocean productivity. Overall, our observations support the hypothesis that the forest dieback was associated with low water availability and Fe toxicity driven by a strong ENSO event.

This chapter takes a journey through literature and into anthropology and back, which has transformed, and problematized, epistemological understandings of both traditional Dreaming narratives and Aboriginal-authored literary artifacts. It explores the ways in which literary critical work on Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria, which mobilizes Dreaming narratives, has been enriched, and complicated, by trans-disciplinary conversations with anthropologists. The chapter endeavors to cast light on the vulnerabilities of the researcher working at the interface of these disciplines, and also transculturally. It raises points of contention between the disciplines of anthropology and literary studies, uncovering the fraught understandings of the role of postcolonialism, and the problems of gate-keeping in the academy and in the wider community in Australia.

This article is dedicated to a close examination of how stories of Indigenous place meaning come to light, and the pathways by which they travel, both physically (as tangible expressions) and intel...