Metal enrichment in estuarine sediments proximal to acid sulfate soils as a novel palaeodrought proxy.

Persistent drought over eastern Australia at the turn of the last millennium reduced stream flow in Australia's largest and most economically important drainage basin. Low water levels in the basin's terminal lakes triggered widespread pyrite oxidation, which altered surface water chemistry and released metals into the environment. The frequency of these events, and the links between drought and acid sulfate soil activation, are not known because the historical and instrumental records are short. Here, we present a Holocene-aged record of trace metal enrichment from Lake Albert-part of the terminal Lower Lakes system of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia-that demonstrates the potential of trace elements mobilised during acidification events for palaeodrought reconstructions. Symptomatic metals were measured from a core of clayey sediment to form a multi-element assemblage that reveals acidification events in the geological past. Correlation with regional climate proxies suggests that climate forcing is significant in driving metal flux to estuarine sinks in acid sulfate soil rich landscapes, although the intensity of a drought is not the only variable responsible for acidification intensity. The constructed record indicates that regional climate moved from a generally humid climate phase with intermittent droughts, to a more arid climate at ~5.2ka which prevailed until ~1.7ka. Following conditions were relatively wet with low climatic variability through till European Settlement. Enrichment is observed coincident with both the 1982-83 drought and Millennium Drought, the latter of which reaching an intensity unsurpassed in the last ~4.8ka, likely a product of anthropogenic changes to the Lower Murray-Darling Basin system.