Sediment and Water Movement at One Tree Reef, Great Barrier Reef, 1979

Geoscience Australia Data provides a dataset on suspended-sediment transport and water circulation at One Tree Reef in the southern Great Barrier Reef. The data was collected in March/April 1979, monitoring water flow and sediment flux across different reef zones including windward and leeward margins, coral flats, and sand sheets. The description details patterns of flow reversal and net sediment movement during spring and neap tides.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment transport pathways based on described water flow patterns across reef zones.
• Analyzing the impact of tidal cycles (spring vs. neap) on net sediment gain or loss in the lagoon.
• Studying the relationship between energy patterns and mud distribution in a reef system as described.
• Calibrating hydrodynamic models for coral reef lagoons using observed flow reversal characteristics.

Strengths

• Data collection is temporally focused on a specific monitoring period in March/April 1979.
• The description provides detailed qualitative observations of water movement and sediment flux patterns across distinct reef environments.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to a single two-month study period in 1979.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Field monitoring of water circulation and sediment flux.

Time Range

March/April 1979

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 14:00:01.015416; freshness should be verified.

Geography

One Tree Reef, southern Great Barrier Reef