Antipodean ice ages

Recognition of vanished glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere dates back to the 1820s, but major interest dates from the 1850s. In 1852 Rev. W. B. Clarke suggested that Pleistocene glaciation had affected the Australian Alps. Studies by F. von Hochstetter and J. von Haast, from 1859, recognised active glaciation in New Zealand. The extraordinary valley glaciers which dropped from elevations of 2 500 m to 150 m above sea-level, bordered by forests of tree ferns: caused international interest. Hochstetter noted the existence of similar glaciers in South America and postulated that the Southern Hemisphere was still experiencing an Ice Age, while that in the Northern Hemisphere had ceased. Hochstetter was, however, more impressed by the evidence of vanished glaciation on a much larger scale. Identification of a glaciated surface in the Inman Valley of South Australia by A. R. C. Selwyn in 1859 marked the beginning of certain knowledge of glaciation in Australia. In 1877 studies at Halletts Cove in South Australia by R. Tate began a systematic examination of Australian glaciation. Tate, like those before him, believed the glaciation was "Newer Tertiary", (but it was later recognised as Late Palaeozoic). However many geologists were sceptical that glaciation could occur at such low latitudes, and close to sea-level, despite the New Zealand evidence. Glacial features studied by Selwyn and R. Daintree at Bacchus Marsh, and elsewhere in Victoria, in the 1860s, after early scepticism, were attributed to a Late Palaeo-zoic event, and its greater extent was recognised through the 1880s. In 1885 R.D. Oldham suggested contemporaneity between this glaciation and those recognised in India and South Africa. The Pleistocene record began to be studied in the Australian Alps in the 1880s by R. von Lendenfeld, who also examined the New Zealand glaciers. Lendenfeld pointed out that no satisfactory theory of the reason for ice ages could be accepted unless it took into account glaciations in the southern hemisphere. A major contributor to research on both the Pleistocene and late Palaeozoic glaciations was T. W. E. David, who directed a Glacial Committee under the auspices of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, which gathered evidence from researchers throughout Australia and New Zealand. The information gathered on the late Palaeozoic glaciation was a major source of evidence to support Wegener's theory of continental drift and the existence of a long vanished Gondwana supercontinent. A Late Precambrian event (originally thought to be Cambrian) was recognised from 1900, through W. Howchin. Later studies expanded the extent of the ancient glaciations to NW Australia. Australian glacial studies played an important role in the development of knowledge of Gondwanaland, and more recently of the concept of Rodinia.