Keppel Bay Beach-Ridge Sedimentation Record from Late Holocene to Modern Times

Six accretional beach-ridge units at Keppel Bay, Australia, were deposited in periods of rapid progradation approximately 1500, 1000, 450, and 230 years before present. The strandplain potentially traps the equivalent of 79% of the estimated long-term average annual bedload of the Fitzroy River deposited in Keppel Bay. This dataset from Geoscience Australia, last updated in 2026, provides a record of sediment accumulation influenced by climate fluctuations and land-use changes.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment transport and accumulation rates based on beach-ridge progradation timelines.
• Analyzing the impact of climate phases on coastal sedimentation based on the record of a wetter late Holocene.
• Investigating the influence of land-use changes on sediment provenance based on trace-element composition shifts.
• Correlating coastal sedimentary records with other regional climate proxies based on the documented reduction in accumulation rate since ~1000 yr BP.

Strengths

• Provides a sediment record spanning from the historical period back to the middle Holocene.
• Includes optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) age estimates for key deposition periods.
• Quantifies the sediment store, estimating it traps the equivalent of 79% of the Fitzroy River's long-term average annual bedload.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Analysis of beach-ridge sediment composition and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating.

Time Range

Middle Holocene to modern (historical) period.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 18:28:50.141095; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Keppel Bay, central Queensland, Australia.