Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It includes Bali, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra in Indonesia, and their surrounding small islands, as well as the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland.
The area of Sundaland encompasses the Sunda Shelf, a tectonically stable extension of Southeast Asia's continental shelf that was exposed during glacial periods of the last 2 million years.
The extent of the Sunda Shelf is approximately equal to the 120-meter isobath. In addition to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, it includes the Java Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, and portions of the South China Sea. In total, the area of Sundaland is approximately 1,800,000 km2. The area of exposed land in Sundaland has fluctuated considerably during the past recent 2 million years; the modern land area is approximately half of the maximum extent.
The western and southern borders of Sundaland are clearly marked by the deeper waters of the Sunda Trench - some of the deepest in the world - and the Indian Ocean. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia's land mammal fauna, and thus the boundary of the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea, a separate biogeographical region that is considered part of Australasia. The Wallace Line corresponds to a deep-water channel that has never been crossed by any land bridges. The northern border of Sundaland is more difficult to define in bathymetric terms; a phytogeographic transition at approximately 9oN is considered to be the northern boundary.
Greater portions of Sundaland were most recently exposed during the last glacial period from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago.
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We present analyses of new and previously published estimates of total (vegetation plus soil) carbon storage on exposed continental shelves during the LGM. Carbon stock estimates from environmental reconstructions vary from 113 to 202 Pg C. Estimates from ...
2006
The impact of the 8.2 ka cooling event during the Early–Mid Holocene has not been widely observed in Southern Europe, which in contrast to Northern Europe, was already experiencing a cooler than present climate at this time. Multi-proxy analysis of sedimen ...