Dunes
240 m high & over 1.1 million years old!
The team of researchers from University of Queensland, Flinders University, Utah State University, Canterbury University and San Diego State University are working together to bring a multi-disciplinary approach to developing an understanding of large sand-rich environments located along the southeast Queensland coast.
The team has been funded on an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant from 2015-2019 to work on Fraser Island and the Cooloola Sand Mass.
Aeolian environments have the potential to record proxies for palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic research. The SDSU Quaternary Lab is involved in numerous projects designed to extract those records. Members of the lab are assisting large research groups through providing stratigraphic control and geomorphic mapping. Most commonly, lab members collect high resolution ground penetrating radar while assisting with coring and other mechanisms of sample collection.
Examples of Current Work
Dune coring for OSL and magnetic analysis
Then UQ PhD student, now PhD, Dr Daniel Ellerton sampling the "Goldfish" unit at the bluff on Rainbow Beach, Cooloola Sand Mass, Queensland, Australia
Sediment sampling for properties, soil stratigraphy and OSL dating
Dr Talitha Santini examines samples recovered from a bucket auger for soils properties
160 MHz GPR over dunes in action
Dr Allen Gontz & Ms Niamh Shulmeister collect 160 MHz GPR over the Little Blow, Rainbow Beach, Cooloola Sand Mass, Queensland, Australia
Research Products from authors associated with the Lab
- Ellerton, D*, Shulmeister, J, Rittenour, T, Gontz, A, Welsh, K and Patton, N*, 2020. An 800 kyr record of dune emplacement in relationship to high sea level forcing, Cooloola Sand Mass, Queensland, Australia. Geomorphology, 364
- Ellerton, D, Rittenour, T, Miot da Silva, G, Gontz, A, Shulmeister, J, Hesp, P, Santini, T, and Welsh, K, 2018. Late Holocene cliff-top blowout activation and evolution in the Cooloola Sand Mass, South East Queensland, Australia. The Holocene, 28 (11) 1697-1711
- Gontz, AM, Moss, PT, McCallum, A, and Shulmeister, J, 2016, Ground penetrating radar observations of present and former coastal environments, Great Sandy National Park, Queensland, Australia – focus on Fraser Island: Journal of Coastal Research Special Issue 75, 730-734
- Gontz, AM, Moss, PT, Sloss, CR, Petherick, LM, McCallum, A,Shapland, F, 2015. Understanding past climate variation and environmental change for the future of an iconic landscape - K'gari Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 22(2), 105-123.
- Gontz, AM, Moss, PT, Wagenknecht, EK, 2014. Stratigraphic architecture of a regressive strand plain, Flinders Beach, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia. Journal of Coastal Research 30(3), 575-585.