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Rates of Shoreline Progradation During the Last 1,700 Years at Beachmere, Southeastern Queensland, Australia, Based on Optical Ages of Beach Ridges

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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The morphology and chronostratigraphy of seven beach ridges at Beachmere, southeastern Queensland, Australia, provide a record of changes in shoreline accretion and relative sea level over the last 1,700 years. Optical dating of beds of pebbly sand that form the inner 7th ridge reveals that 1,700 -140 yrs ago relative sea level at the site was approximately 1 m higher than at present. During the subsequent 600 yrs, the coast prograded at ~ 0.16 m yr-1 until ridge 6 was emplaced 1,140 ?80 yrs ago; this increased to a rate of ~0.40 m yr-1 as ridges 5 (optical age: 860 ?70 yrs) to 1 (140 - 50 yrs) were emplaced. A relatively wide (~200 m) intertidal to supratidal flat between ridges 4 (690 - 60 yrs) and 3 (190 ?40 yrs) marks a change from well-defined and regularly spaced ridges, 7 - 4 (~ 95 m apart), to lower amplitude closely spaced ridges, 3 ? 1 (< 33 m apart). Ridges 3 ? 1 have Optical ages that overlap within their 1 ? uncertainty and probably represent a rapid phase of shoreline accretion related to an increase in sediment supply associated with European settlement. The optical age of ridge 1 (140 ? 50 yrs), which sits immediately behind the modern beach, provides a maximum age for the onset of the modern erosional regime at the site.

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Title Rates of Shoreline Progradation During the Last 1,700 Years at Beachmere, Southeastern Queensland, Australia, Based on Optical Ages of Beach Ridges
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/224919be-bdfb-4254-915d-a7802f6c63b1
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        153.02,
        -27.12
      ],
      [
        153.04,
        -27.12
      ],
      [
        153.04,
        -27.11
      ],
      [
        153.02,
        -27.11
      ],
      [
        153.02,
        -27.12
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Rates of Shoreline Progradation During the Last 1,700 Years at Beachmere, Southeastern Queensland, Australia, Based on Optical Ages of Beach Ridges". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/rates-of-shoreline-progradation-during-the-last-1700-years-at-beachmere-southeastern-queensland