At 120m BPL (fig. 1a, C 17,000 yr BP), the bulk of the Sunda and Sahul shelves were largely exposed and formed massive lowland connections between present day islands in this regions and adjacent continents. Sumatra, Java and Borneo are connected by the exposed Sunda Shelf. If one considers new continuous shelf exposed south and east of the Isthmus of Kra, an additional 1.53 million sq km of land was annexed to Southeast Asia. This area is three-fouths the present day combined area of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore (2.07 million sq km) (Webster's, 19980). At 120 m BL, the total newly connected area of the Sunda Shelf (in Sumatra, Java and Borneo) exceeded 3.2 million sq km, thus increasing the contiguous area of Indo-China by about 1.5 times. In addition, the islands of Hainan and Taiwan were connected to mainland China, and Sri Lanka was connect with India. Natuna Island and the other smaller island of today's South China Sea (e.g. Anambas Islands and Tambelan Archipelago) were a part of the exposed Sunda Shelf and likely offered some significant topographic relief. Although Borneo and Palawan were not connected by a land bridge at 17,000 yr BP, the Balabac Straits were reduced to a width of only about 12 km. Sulawesi remained separated from Borneo by a narrow but very deep ocean trench. To the east the exposed Sahul Shelf broadly connected Australia and New Guinea and surround the Aru Islands.Freepmail me about this paper.
At 100m and 75m BPL (Fig. 1b, c, c. 15m000 and 13,000 yr BP), the configuration of the exposed Sunda and Sahul shelves remained very similar to the 120 m BPL arraangement and no major land connections were lost. At 75 m BLP (Fig. 1c), it is likely that one or more freshwater lakes or swamps existed at various times in depression where the Gulf of Siam is now located (Emery & Nino, 1963) and bottom cores taken off the east coast of the Malay Peninsula contained peat deposits indicating a Pleistocene peat swamp (Biswas, 1973). Furthermore, evidence of old coast lines support the presence of a brackish waster lake in the Gulf of Capentaria at about 60 m BPL (Torgensen et al,. 1985).
At 50 m BPL (Fig. 1d, c. 11,000 yr BP), extensive land bridges still connected the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java and Borneo.
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