Abstract
K’gari and the Great Sandy Coast of Queensland Australia is a unique landscape. The sand-dominated system receives sand from the world’s long longshore drift system which feeds the development of the world’s three largest sand islands. The construction of northern-most K’gari, allowed the environmental change and the development of the southern Great Barrier Reef. Understanding the construction, earth surface processes and how this system responds to large and small scale environmental change, including sea level and climate, is crucial to development of conservation and management strategies.
Since 2012 an interdisciplinary team of geologists, geophysicists, geographers, ecologists, engineers and climate scientists have been studying the evolution of the Great Sandy Coast. Amongst the methods applied is ground penetrating radar (GPR). Over the past 13 years, well over 350 km of GPR data has been acquired at K’gari, Cooloola, Noosa and Minjerribah. The data has been used to examine Holocene sea level change, understand lagoon to marsh transitions, examine soil development, locate and map areas of cultural heritage, determine impact of changing earth surface process and climate and understand human-environment interactions/impacts on landscapes and hydrology.
A series of short vignettes will be presented to showcase the capabilities of GPR and the value add to projects. These will include understanding sea level and coastal processes, mapping soils and soil thickness, understanding wetlands basin development and processes as well as linking perched aquifers to soil systems and determining possible linkages between surface water bodies.