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

Geoscience Australia Data monitored sediment and water flux at Boulder Reef in the Northern Great Barrier Reef before, during, and after Tropical Cyclone Dominic. The dataset captures a high-energy event with water velocities up to 60 cm/s and quantifies sediment loads, including a substantial terrestrial component from the Endeavour River. Monitoring indicated a second pulse of terrigenous material four days after the cyclone, and core data suggests a long-term depositional history.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment transport dynamics based on water velocity and sediment load measurements.
• Analyzing the impact of tropical cyclones on reef carbonate budgets based on quantified reef-derived sediment loss.
• Studying terrestrial sediment influx to marine ecosystems based on the detection of illite and kaolinite clay minerals.
• Calibrating long-term reef sedimentation models based on the inferred 5000-year periodicity of clay deposition events.

Strengths

• Captures a high-energy event with specific measurements: water velocities up to 60 cm/s and sediment loads 2-5 times greater during the cyclone.
• Provides quantified environmental context: 430 mm of rainfall in 3 days and a river discharge of nearly 50,000 megalitres/day.
• Includes temporal analysis of sediment composition, distinguishing reef-derived and terrigenous components before, during, and after the event.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to a single reef site within the Great Barrier Reef.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Field monitoring of sediment and water flux.

Time Range

Period surrounding the passage of Tropical Cyclone Dominic.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 12:32:05.271974; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Boulder Reef, Northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia.