Australian Ocean Data Network provides a dataset monitoring sediment and water flux at Boulder Reef in the Northern Great Barrier Reef. Measurements were taken before, during, and after Tropical Cyclone Dominic, which caused record river discharge and altered sediment composition. The dataset likely contains time-series measurements of water velocity, sediment load, and particulate organic and inorganic carbon.
Use Cases
- Modeling sediment transport dynamics based on water velocity measurements up to 60 cm/s
- Analyzing the impact of high-energy events on reef-derived sediment loads, which increased two to five times during the cyclone
- Studying terrigenous sediment influx to reefs based on clay mineral (illite and kaolinite) detection
- Estimating long-term sediment budgets based on described periodic clay deposition of 135-228 tonnes every five years
Strengths
- Captures a high-energy event with specific measurements: winds exceeding 50 knots and water velocities up to 40 cm/s
- Includes temporal context: monitoring before, during, and after Tropical Cyclone Dominic, plus a second terrigenous pulse four days later
- Provides quantified sediment loads: particulate organic material up to ten times greater than particulate inorganic carbon by weight
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Collection Method
- Monitoring of sediment and water flux at Boulder Reef
- Time Range
- Period surrounding Tropical Cyclone Dominic
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-16 14:05:39.842904; freshness should be verified
- Geography
- Boulder Reef, Northern Great Barrier Reef, Endeavour River catchment