Product catalogue
Relative sea-level records preserved in Holocene beach-ridge strandplains – An example from tropical northeastern Australia
Northeastern Queensland is a far-field site from ice caps formed during the Last Glacial. However, the region has experienced glacio-hydroisostatically driven coastal elevation change during the Holocene that generated a distinctive relative sea-level record. We tested whether this subtle vertical movement of the coast is recorded in the morphology and stratigraphy of the beach-ridge strandplain at Cowley Beach, which comprises a series of 36 prominent and several subdued or truncated beach ridges. Previous studies have shown that the strandplain records the long-term progradation of the coast, with the ridges comprising coarse-medium sand that was deposited during both fairweather (foreshore and berm facies) and tropical cyclone events (erosional unconformities; storm-surge deposits) over the past approximately 7 ka. We utilised a fine-scale digital elevation model of the strandplain to examine beach ridge morphology and to compare the elevation pattern with published Holocene sea-level data for the region. The overall elevation pattern of the strandplain surface is consistent with the regional sea-level history, that includes a highstand at around 6 ka BP generated by isostatic uplift, and the elevation of the berm facies matches well robust coral sea-level indicator data. We also modelled the strandplain topographic patterns that would result under stable and continually rising Holocene sea-levels. The frequencies of elevation classes across the strandplain are normally distributed when the strandplain is deposited during a period of stable sea level, and negatively skewed with a continually rising sea level, consistent with the expected patterns. The results indicate the sensitivity of the elevation of the top of the berm facies preserved in beach ridges to subtle changes in sea level (tens of cm over a thousand years). Our results further underline the utility of beach-ridge strandplains, a globally distributed coastal landform, for building relatively detailed regional records of sea level during the Holocene at sites currently lacking this information.
<b>Citation:</b>. Brendan P. Brooke, Zhi Huang, William A. Nicholas, Thomas S.N. Oliver, Toru Tamura, Colin D. Woodroffe, Scott L. Nichol, Relative sea-level records preserved in Holocene beach-ridge strandplains – An example from tropical northeastern Australia,<i> Marine Geology</i>, Volume 411, 2019, Pages 107-118, ISSN 0025-3227, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2019.02.005.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2018-06-08
- Date (Publication)
- 2024-12-18T04:26:59
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/121298
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Elsevier B.V.
External Contact Author Brooke, B.P.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Author Huang, Z.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Author Nicholas, W.A.
External Contact Author Oliver, T.S.N.
External Contact Author Tamura, T.
External Contact Author Woodroffe, C.D.
External Contact Author Nichol, S.L.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
- Name
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Marine Geology
- Issue identification
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Volume 411, May 2019
- Page
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107-118
- Purpose
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Analysis and interpretation of survey data collected during field surveys following cyclone Yasi.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Resource provider Place and Communities Division
External Contact Point of contact Huang, Z.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
- Spatial representation type
Spatial resolution
- Level of detail
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GPS location of study site
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2015-10-12 2015-10-16
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Protocol
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FILE:DATA-DIRECTORY
- Name of the resource
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
- Description
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Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Keywords
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Strandplain morphology
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Coastal LiDAR
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Holocene sea level
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Glacio-hydroisostatic effect
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Beach ridges
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
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4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
- Other constraints
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Crown Copyright © 2019
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice facsimile
- OnLine resource
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Link to Journal
Link to Journal
- Distribution format
-
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Manuscript to be submitted to Marine Geology Journal
- Hierarchy level
- Document
Metadata constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/eb4de859-0401-49a9-9c55-853ed98ac4ed
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Owner Brooke, B.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Point of contact Huang, Z.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Journal Article
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/121298
- Metadata linkage
-
https://ecat.ga.gov.au:8080/geonetwork/srv/eng//metadata/add5bc51-dd4d-408c-8c1b-deebaacf6efe
- Metadata linkage
-
https://ecat.ga.gov.au:8080/geonetwork/srv/eng//metadata/eb4de859-0401-49a9-9c55-853ed98ac4ed
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-06-20T01:31:03.815Z
- Date info (Creation)
- 2018-05-04T03:37:56
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-06-20T01:31:53.568Z
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3 (Draft Schemas 2015)
- Edition date
- 2015-07-01T00:00:00
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, April 2015