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Palaeomagnetism of beach ridges in South Australia and the Milankovitch theory of ice ages

Nature volume 286, pages 699–702 (1980)Cite this article

Abstract

Although the Pleistocene glaciations continue to attract new explanations1–3, an early explanation in terms of secular variations of the Earth's orbital elements, the Milankovitch theory4, has recently gained considerable support5,6. This theory predicts insolation variations with periodicities of ∼20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 yr. Its popularity is attributable mostly to deep-sea sediment information on variations of the glaciation-sensitive 16O/18O isotopic ratio and the increasingly convincing match of those variations to the Milankovitch climatic curves7–9. Independently, land-based evidence is accumulating in favour of the Milankovitch theory from raised coral terrace10, loess11, and pollen studies12. We discuss here evidence for the Milankovitch theory from a South Australian sea-level record.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bureau of Mineral Resources, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia

    Mart Idnurm

  2. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

    Peter J. Cook

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  1. Mart Idnurm
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  2. Peter J. Cook
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Idnurm, M., Cook, P. Palaeomagnetism of beach ridges in South Australia and the Milankovitch theory of ice ages. Nature 286, 699–702 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/286699a0

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