Bass Strait Land-Bridge Palaeogeography and Shoreline Transgression Rates

High-resolution bathymetry data models landscape change during the flooding of the Bass Strait land-bridge after the Last Ice Age. The analysis, published in Quaternary Science Reviews in 2025, was conducted by researchers from the Australian Ocean Data Network and others. It finds shoreline transgression rates exceeded 30 meters per year, drowning 15 km of land within a human lifetime.

Use Cases

• Model shoreline transgression rates exceeding 30 m/yr using derived bathymetric data.
• Analyze the timing of human migration across the exposed land-bridge relative to climate cooling events.
• Reconstruct the palaeogeography of clan estates and residential places across Bass Strait.
• Benchmark land-bridge flooding processes and their impact on human mobility patterns.

Strengths

• Derived from high-resolution bathymetry data.
• Provides quantified shoreline transgression rates (exceeding 30 m/yr).
• Focuses on a key land-bridge for human and biological connectivity in Australasia.

Limitations

• Specific dataset size, row count, and column details are unknown.
• Underlying raw data files and formats are not specified in the provided metadata.
• Geographic coverage is limited to the Bass Strait region of southeastern Australia.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Analysis utilizing high-resolution bathymetry.

Time Range

Period following the Last Ice Age.

Freshness

Metadata last updated in April 2026.

Geography

Bass Strait, separating Tasmania from mainland Australia.