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Australian Coastal Society

Australian Coastal Society

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DISCOVERING MORUYA 1971-2021

December 22, 2021
Main Image

DISCOVERING MORUYA 1971-2021

Main Image

 Moruya Beach (NSW) beach ridge plain digital elevation model derived from LiDAR (Source. Tom Oliver)

Fifty years ago I had my first encounter with the Moruya River, the town, the airport, the old granite quarry, and the beach system to the north of the river entrance. Ever since this area has been one of great importance on the NSW coast, the focus of attention not just by me but by many others interested in coastal evolution and dynamics. It remains so today attracting folk like Andy Short to live close by.

All this started while undertaking reconnaissance soon after commencing as a Research Fellow in Biogeography and Geomorphology at ANU early in 1971. The then acting head of department, Joe Jennings, kindly approved of the hire of a caravan and with family in tow we spent two months looking at sites from Gold Coast to Mallacoota. The NSW south coast was a mystery to me at this time and it was a pleasure to meet Bob Young early on to learn more about interesting places to visit. Bob was a fellow geography student at Sydney in the late 50s. He was on staff at University of Wollongong living at Kiama Downs; there we poured over some air photos and he pointed to the set of what we called beach ridges in the bay north of the Moruya River. I was looking for places to drill some holes if only I could get my hands on a drill rig; this embayment looked ideal, and so it turned out to be.

Back at ANU the case was made to acquire a rig and a driller so by 1972 the stage was set to start morphostratigraphic investigations of coastal sand deposits at Moruya and elsewhere in southeast Australia. Karl Shaw, the driller, had the capacity to retrieve considerable material to depths of c. 30 m below this beach/foredune ridge or strand plain. Karl and I spent the next two decades on and off drilling in many places; it was a voyage of continuous discovery made possible by his tremendous skill and my good fortune of having those 5 years at ANU with its radiocarbon and other laboratory facilities, to get started at places like Moruya.

What we found beneath the surface raised questions about modern environments of deposition on the beachface and offshore, and later in estuaries. We had to learn to dive. A crash scuba course followed, and many hours were spent beyond the breaker zone and seaward of the rock platforms to the north of the river and around Broulee Headland and Island. This provided evidence of shell type and sand composition highlighting the compartmental nature of this section of the coast that remains a fascinating subject of study today. Our understanding of the late Quaternary evolution of the area continues to grow with drilling of the blocked swamps such as Waldrons, and the flood plain near the town, together with finding buried rock platforms and relict cliff faces. It was a treasure trove waiting to be uncovered. Greg Bowman looked at soil profile changes and Tom Oliver has demonstrated the power of OSL, GPR and LiDAR in his detailed analysis of Holocene evolution of embayments north and south of the Moruya River.

Late in 71 another opportunity arose to spend time at Moruya and Broulee. I had met Ian Eliot who was undertaking a PhD at ANU supervised by John Chappell. Ian’s study area was Durras Beach north of Batemans Bay. We talked about establishing a site for long term monitoring of beach change at relatively easy access to Canberra. Years before I had learnt from Alec Costin, CSIRO Alpine Ecology Unit, of the value of systematic monitoring while employed as his field assistant. The need to justify frequent trips to what we now call Bengello Beach from Canberra gave rise to the opportunity to set up several stations to measure foredune, beach and nearshore change. Ian and I designed the basic layout of profiles that continues to be measured at regular intervals by Roger McLean. Rog joined the group at ANU while I was there and quickly got involved in the program. Don Wright arrived at Sydney University in 1974 and commenced his morphodynamic studies; one of his sites was in the vicinity of the profiles on Bengello Beach. So the treasure trove on information grew with insights into beach dynamics. This continues as Rog explores the implications of 50 years of measurements of beach and foredune change. Here we were fortunate to capture various storm events and the nature of post-storm recovery, more on this story next year.

What an enormous privilege it has been to have discovered Moruya. I have been able to work with great colleagues and to have been able to help those who in turn acquired new knowledge of this wonderful area. It remains one of the most rewarding field laboratories on the NSW coast with more to be gained from both offshore and onshore field research.

Bruce Thom

Words by Prof Bruce Thom. Please respect the author’s thoughts and reference appropriately: (c) ACS, 2021. For correspondence about this blog post please email austcoastsoc@gmail.com

#206

   

By

Prof Bruce Thom |

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 |

Category: Blog
Previous Post:Main ImagePROTECTING A BIG CITY: NEW YORK DECISION MAKING
Next Post:Coastal engineering and management learning points – Western Australia

Sidebar

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  • Thursday, March 9 Public Trust Doctrine Part 1: Tribute to Jim Titus
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  • Wednesday, October 26 Great Barrier Reef—More or Less Gloom
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  • Tuesday, August 9 Beach Access – An International Perspective
  • Wednesday, July 27 SoE 2021 and Coasts
  • Tuesday, July 19 Human Rights and Beaches
  • Wednesday, July 6 Coastal Walks and Local Councils
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  • Sunday, December 12 PROTECTING A BIG CITY: NEW YORK DECISION MAKING
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  • Sunday, October 10 COASTAL CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: ROLES FOR THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
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  • Monday, August 30 LAST INTERGLACIAL SEA LEVELS: RECENT RESEARCH AND MEET “STROMBUS BUBONIUS”
  • Wednesday, August 18   COASTAL NEWS – AUGUST 2021
  • Monday, July 19 Reflections on past coastal recommendations by the Australian Government
  • Monday, July 5 LARGS: A GEOHERITAGE SITE?
  • Thursday, June 24 PROPERTY RIGHTS: WHAT CONDITIONS PREVAIL IN A CIVIL SOCIETY?
  • Monday, June 14 UNIVERSITY RESEARCH—PERSONAL SADNESS
  • Saturday, May 29 SEAHORSE MONITORING BY WOOLLAHRA COUNCIL, NSW
  • Tuesday, May 18 US Climate Indicators
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  • Wednesday, April 22 DOVER HEIGHTS CLIFFS, SYDNEY
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  • Tuesday, March 24 CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE—THE CURRENT CRISIS
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  • Thursday, February 27 HOLOCENE SEA LEVELS AND COASTAL EVOLUTION
  • Monday, February 17 Brian Caton ‘a coastal legend’- RIP 9 February 2020
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  • Wednesday, November 6 28th Annual NSW Coastal Conference – Terrigal, 2019
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  • Friday, September 27 Climate Change Attribution
  • Tuesday, September 10 Vale Jack Davies at age 97 – leader, teacher and mentor
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  • Monday, August 19 Rethinking Landscape in Aotearoa
  • Friday, August 2 Collaborative Science and Coastal Adaptation
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  • Sunday, July 14 DOUGLAS W. JOHNSON 1919 AND BEYOND
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  • Saturday, June 22 A Curiosity of Cusps
  • Monday, June 3 Federal Election 2019 and Coasts
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  • Thursday, March 28 Climate change adaptation: perspectives from Canada and England
  • Monday, March 18 Foreshore land grants in eastern Sydney
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  • Thursday, February 21 Future national need for a healthy environment
  • Wednesday, February 13 ANZGG CONFERENCE AT INVERLOCH, VICTORIA
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  • Tuesday, September 5 Hurricane Harvey and its implications
  • Friday, September 1 Gippsland (Victoria) and relative sea level rise
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  • Monday, August 21 Managing the unique wetlands of Gippsland Lakes
  • Thursday, August 10 Lifecycle of coastal environmental law
  • Friday, July 28 Charlie Veron – A Life Underwater
  • Sunday, July 23 Coastal Sediment Management
  • Friday, July 7 Coastal walks -Malabar Headland National Park, Sydney
  • Friday, June 30 Honeycomb Weathering
  • Friday, June 23 Disaster preparedness
  • Wednesday, May 31 Sept-Iles: Managing a migrating foreland
  • Wednesday, May 24 Achievements of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility
  • Saturday, May 13 Coastal Shacks
  • Wednesday, April 26 Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville
  • Thursday, April 20 The Blue Mud Bay case – Aboriginal property rights in the Northern Territory
  • Tuesday, April 4 Botany Bay Sands
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  • Thursday, February 9 Coast Ambassadors
  • Friday, February 3 Coastal Graphics
  • Tuesday, January 31 Irukandji on the move
  • Tuesday, January 24 Acceleration in mean sea level
  • Wednesday, January 11 Concerns of an American coastal scientist under a Trump presidency
  • Sunday, January 8 EXTREME STORM EVENTS IN THE USA, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2021
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