Cooper’s Dune
Basic information
Sample name: Cooper’s Dune

Sample aka: Cooper’s Dune, Dempsey Lake

Reference: R. Grün, R. Wells, S. Eggins, N. Spooner, M. Aubert, L. Brown, and E. Rhodes. 2008. Electron spin resonance dating of South Australian megafauna sites. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 55:917-935 [ER 3746]
Geography
Country: Australia

State: South Australia


Coordinate: 32° 28' S, 137° 42' E
Coordinate basis: stated in text

Time interval: Late Pleistocene

Max Ma: 0.061

Min Ma: 0.047

Age basis: ESR

Geography comments: Cooper's Dune is an eroding sand dune located on the shore of Dempsey Lake, near Port Augusta, South Australia.
Robust closed system U-series ESR (CSUS-ESR) age estimates on megafauna from the Cooper's Dune deposit range from 61-47 ka.

Environment
Lithology: sandstone

Taphonomic context: aeolian deposit

Habitat comments: "The eroded surface of Cooper’s Dune is covered by a lag of bones, stones and stone artefacts, that have derived from wind deflation of the bed of Dempsey Lake, which is now an ephemeral lake".
"There are two stratigraphic horizons beneath the modern sand drift. The upper is a reddish-brown sand containing the remains of burrowing marsupials as well as evidence of human occupation. The lower horizon was a carbonate-cemented light-brown sand containing carbonate-encrusted shells of land snails and bones of extinct megafauna. The megafaunal remains are thus not contemporaneous with the artefacts".
"Coring of the dune revealed several carbonate-cemented horizons indicating that the dune represented a series of intermittent aeolian events rather than a single period of intense aeolian activity. Some articulated vertebrate remains have been collected in situ, but most are fragmentary and widely scattered. Sand movement has probably contributed to this dispersal, but there is also evidence of scavenger activity".

Methods
Life forms: rodents,other large mammals,other small mammals,lizards,snakes

Sampling methods: surface

Sample size: 754 specimens

Sampled by: D. L. G. Williams

Years: 1979

Sampling comments: No specific excavation details are available. The faunal counts were collected by the sample enterer during a collections visit to the South Australian Museum in September 2022.
In addition to the counts below, numerous gastropod shells and eggshell fragments (mostly of Genyornis newtoni) were also present. Counts of these specimens were not obtained due to time constraints.

Metadata
Sample number: 3994

Contributor: Benjamin Carter

Enterer: Benjamin Carter

Created: 2022-09-09 14:09:24

Modified: 2022-09-09 06:19:25

Abundance distribution
22 species
4 singletons
total count 754
geometric series index: 30.8
Fisher's α: 4.242
geometric series k: 0.7573
Hurlbert's PIE: 0.7526
Shannon's H: 1.9573
Good's u: 0.9947
Each square represents a species. Square sizes are proportional to counts.
Register