Bass Strait Land-Bridge Palaeogeography with High-Resolution Bathymetry

A 2025 study from Quaternary Science Reviews uses high-resolution bathymetry to model landscape change during the flooding of the Bass Strait land-bridge after the Last Ice Age. The analysis, published by authors including David M. Kennedy and Bruno David, finds shoreline transgression rates could exceed 30 meters per year, drowning 15 km of land within a human lifetime. This provides a benchmark for understanding the impact of rapid sea-level rise on human migrations and connectivity in southeastern Australia.

Use Cases

• Modeling past shoreline transgression rates based on high-resolution bathymetry data.
• Analyzing the impact of rapid sea-level rise on human migration patterns and connectivity.
• Reconstructing palaeogeography and landscape change of submerged land-bridges.
• Studying the timing of human crossings relative to climate cooling and warming events.

Strengths

• Based on a peer-reviewed 2025 study published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
• Utilizes high-resolution bathymetry data for analysis.
• Quantifies specific rates of change, such as shoreline transgression exceeding 30 meters per year.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The primary data format is HTML, which may not be structured for direct analysis.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data.gov.au, associated with a study in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Collection Method

Analysis likely involves processing high-resolution bathymetric data to model palaeogeography.

Time Range

Covers the period of the Bass Strait land-bridge exposure and flooding after the Last Ice Age.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 05:25:24.979481; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Bass Strait region, separating Lutruwita/Tasmania from mainland Australia.