Sediment and Water Flux at Boulder Reef Before, During, and After Tropical Cyclone Dominic

Tropical Cyclone Dominic generated a record Endeavour River discharge of nearly 50,000 megalitres/day and delivered 135-228 tonnes of terrestrial clay to Boulder Reef on the Great Barrier Reef. Sediment and water flux were monitored, showing water velocities up to 60 cm/s and sediment loads two to five times greater during the high-energy event. This dataset, sourced from the Australian Ocean Data Network, captures the interplay of reef-derived carbonate and terrigenous material deposition over a monitoring period.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment load dynamics based on recorded water velocities before, during, and after a cyclone
• Analyzing the terrestrial sediment pulse based on the presence of illite and kaolinite clay minerals
• Quantifying reef-derived carbonate loss based on daily particulate organic material measurements
• Studying the periodicity of clay deposition based on the estimated 5-year recurrence interval over 5000 years

Strengths

• Contains specific quantitative measurements, including water velocities of 11-60 cm/s and sediment loads two to five times greater during the cyclone
• Documents a clear temporal sequence with monitoring before, during, and after a major cyclone event
• Provides estimates for long-term processes, such as 135-228 tonnes of clay deposition every five years over approximately 5000 years

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data files are in PDF and HTML formats, which may require extraction for computational analysis

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Field monitoring of sediment and water flux

Time Range

Monitoring period around the passage of Tropical Cyclone Dominic

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 23:58:38.879082; freshness should be verified

Geography

Boulder Reef, Northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia