Bass Strait Palaeogeography and Shoreline Transgression During Sea-Level Rise

High-resolution bathymetry data was used to model the flooding of the Bass Strait land-bridge after the Last Ice Age. The analysis, published in Quaternary Science Reviews in 2025, indicates shoreline transgression rates could exceed 30 meters per year, drowning 15 km of land within a human lifetime. This dataset provides a benchmark for understanding the impact of rapid landscape change on human migrations in southeastern Australia.

Use Cases

• Modeling ancient human migration routes based on the reconstructed palaeogeography of the exposed land-bridge.
• Analyzing the impact of rapid shoreline transgression (exceeding 30 m/yr) on prehistoric human populations and settlement patterns.
• Studying the connectivity of biological populations and clan estates across the Bass Strait region during periods of lower sea level.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on high-resolution bathymetry data.
• Provides specific rates of shoreline transgression (exceeding 30 m/yr) and land loss (15 km) within a human lifetime.
• Published in a peer-reviewed journal (Quaternary Science Reviews, 2025).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and data scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific study area of Bass Strait.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Utilises high-resolution bathymetry to understand landscape change during sea-level rise.

Time Range

Covers the period of the Last Ice Age and subsequent flooding.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:53:38.229640; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Bass Strait, southeastern Australia, separating Tasmania from the mainland.