I was there again on the wave cut platform to see how high the waves broke on the very highest tide for this month, and also to exercise. (During this Corona virus pandemic we are allowed outside to exercise.)
The photograph was taken by Caroline Forsyth yesterday at 7.23 am on 7th April 2020.
I’m standing on the wave cut platform at the time of the highest tide, yet the waves don’t reach anywhere near the cliff face.
Once upon a time when sea levels were higher, I would have been waist-deep in surf. I am referring to a period just a few thousand years ago, known as the Holocene High Stand.
The waves would have pounded that cliff face, occasionally bringing down great lumps of rock from above.
As the cliff-face retreated landward, the platform became wider. That is why this type of formation is called a Wave Cut Platform.
There are similar geological formations all around the world.
The peer-reviewed geological literature explains that they are evidence sea levels have been falling, not rising, over the last few thousand years. (Some relevant technical references are listed in the postscript.)
Of course, the height of the sea tide varies with the 18.6 year lunar declination cycle, and most obviously varies with the moon’s monthly cycle about the Earth. Yesterday was the highest tide and it occurred on the morning the day before the Full Moon.
Of the three Super Moons this year, tonight’s will come closest to Earth and thus appear the largest.
I am going to be out exercising again tonight, and watching the Full Moon come up.
For the Pagan, the Full Moon represents a time to be grateful. I am grateful that today my daughter is released from two weeks of mandatory quarantine having returned exactly two weeks ago from New York. I am grateful.
**** Postscript
If it is the case that failed scientific paradigms are not disproven, but rather they are replaced. We need a new theory of climate, and it could begin with understanding the sea tides and how they vary with the weather during each calendar year, and also the climate over millennia.
Howard Brady wrote to me a year or so ago:
“There is evidence of a gradual fall (not rise) from a high sea level stand between 8000 and 2000 BP. Such evidence comes from an increasing number of peer-reviewed articles describing evidence of this high sea level stand and its decline along the coasts of Australia, South Africa, South America, South Korea, and Vietnam.
There is increasing evidence that such a wide occurrence of a high sea level stand, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, cannot be interpreted as due to crustal movements (Glacial Isostatic Adjustments -GIAs) in different continents at the same time as these areas did not experience any significant glacial or ice crustal loading during the last ice age advances.
Basically, there is now so much data on this fall in sea level from a high-level stand that the GIAs quoted by Dutton and Lambeck 2012 should be abandoned. A few references to peer reviewed articles describing a high sea level stand in the HTM and the fall in sea-level from 8000 -2000 BP are listed below. There is no justification for any glacio-eustatic uplift since 8000 BP that stopped (for some unknown reason about 2000 BP) in regions that did not experience any ice loading during the last glaciation.
Accordi.A, Carbone, F 2016. Evolution of the siliciclastic-carbonate shelf system of the northern Kenyan coastal belt in response to Late Pleistocene-Holocene relative sea level changes. Journal of African Earth Sciences. Volume 123, November 2016, Pages 234-257
Baker,R.G.V., Haworth,R.J; 2000. Smooth or oscillating late Holocene sea-level curve? Evidence from the palaeo-zoology of fixed biological indicators in east Australia and beyond. Marine Geology 163, 367-386.
Baker,R.G.V., Haworth,R.J., Flood,P.G; 2001. Warmer or Cooler late Holocene palaeoenvironments? Interpreting south-east Australian and Brazilian sea level changes using fixed biological indicators and their d18 Oxygen composition. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 168. 249-272.
Baker,R.G.V., Haworth,R.J., Flood,P.G; 2001. Inter-tidal fixed indicators of former Holocene sea levels in Australia; a summary of sites and a review of methods and models. Quaternary International 83-85. 257-273.
Baker,R.G.V., Haworth,R.J., Flood,P.G; 2005.An Oscillating Holocene Sea-level? Revisiting Rottnest Island, Western Australia, and the Fairbridge Eustatic Hypothesis. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue no.42.
Bracco,B. et al; 2014. A reply to “Relative sea level during the Holocene in Uruguay. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.Volume 401.
Bradley, S, Milne,G, Horton,B, Zong,Y 2016. Modelling sea level data from China and Malay-Thailand to estimate Holocene ice-volume equivalent sea level change. Quaternary Science Reviews 137:54-68
Chiba,T et al;, 2016. Reconstruction of Holocene relative sea-level change and residual uplift in the Lake Inba area, Japan. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, PalaeoecologyVolume 441, Part 4,Pages 982-996
Clement, A, Whitehouse,P, Sloss,S 2015. An examination of spatial variability in the timing and magnitude of Holocene relative sea-level changes in the New Zealand archipelago. Quaternary Science Reviews. Volume 131, Part A. January 2016, Pages 73-101
Haworth,R.J., Baker,R.G.V., Flood,P.G; 2001. Predicted and observed Holocene sea-levels on the Australian coast: what do they indicate about hydrostatic models in far field sites? Journal of Quaternary Research 17. 5-6.
Lee, S., Currell. M, Cendon, D. 2015. Marine water from mid-Holocene sea level highstand trapped in a coastal aquifer: Evidence from groundwater isotopes, and environmental significance. Science of The Total Environment. Volume 544. February 2016, Pages 995-1007
Lunning,S, Vahrenholt, F. Im südlichen Afrika lag der Meeresspiegel vor 5000 Jahren um 3 m höher als heute- Kategorien: Allgemein, News/Termine.25. Juni 2018 | 07:30
Oliver and Terry, 2019. Relative sea-level highstands in Thailand since theMid-Holocene based on 14C rock oyster chronology. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology,Volume 517. Pages 30-38
Prieto,A. Peltier, W. 2016. Relative sea-level changes in the Rio de la Plata, Argentina and Uruguay: A review. Quaternary International.
Sloss, Craig R,: 2005. Holocene sea-level change and the amino-stratigraphy of wave-dominated barrier estuaries on the southeast coast of Australia, PhD thesis, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, 20. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/447.
Sloss, C.R, Murray-Wallace,C.V, Jones.B.G; (2007). Holocene sea-level change on the southeast coast of Australia: a review. The Holocene 17, 7. 999-1014.
Strachan K, et al;, 2014. A late Holocene sea-level curve for the east coast of South Africa. S. Afr. j. sci. vol.110 n.1-2
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Once again Jennifer, you have nailed the facts over the fiction that is peddled by all those that think (which may well pass into past tense – thought – given the current real crisis besetting wo/mankind) that the end is nigh due to wo/man’s so-called environmental impacts on the weather, sea levels, GBR, ………….. as ‘The Guardian’, and others would have us believe, just because they think they are the fonts of all knowledge.
It`s a long painful fight to get the truth out there about climate change.. It`s rather sad that much of mainstream media parrots so much alarmism, which diverts from the real environmental issues that need to be addressed.
Thanks for all the great work Jennifer.
I will be checking the full moon tonight from Arizona, but I see the same side of the moon that you did?
Thank you for the effort you have gone to Jennifer, it is so much appreciated.
I missed the moon this morning. Too much cloud unfortunately. It is interesting to note that the wave cut at Dobroyd Head (below Balgowlah Heights, Sydney) sits higher than the highest of tides when the ocean is calm.
Cheers
Mike
Ta Jen! Have you noticed (looking from above) that the ‘boiling pot’ hole is shaped like a heart? As the water surges through and upward, then sucks back down… it is just like any being’s beating heart.
Jennifer,I think you are right in pursuing this line of evidence that sea levels have fallen in the past few thousand years.
However there is one aspect that you did not cover : cyclonic storms. Do these occur on this stretch of the Qld coast ? And if so, do they create higher waves that crash into the cliff shown in your photo ?
Off topic Jennifer, but are you keeping up with the latest observations about GBR bleaching coming from Terry Hughes et al?
What’s your impression about the usefulness of a fly-over / picture / video survey of reefs for bleaching?
You have done it again! Your powers of scientific observation are literally incredible. Take care and don’t linger there if there is a storm.
Having worked as a geologist on the diamondiferous raised beach deposits of Namibia to the immediate north of the Orange River mouth I can confirm that the Holocene high stand wave-cut platform which sits 1.5-2m above modern sea-level is very much a real feature. The fact that human artefacts from beach dwellers (Strand-Loopers) are associated with this particular raised beach (dumps of discarded shells and occasional stone tools) helps to date this beach. However a 60 miles long south to north section of this raised beach shows that minor crustal warping has raised or lowered sections of this raised beach by +- 0.5m since the beach was formed. Therefore when we write about sea-level changes careful checks on local crustal warping will be necessary to ensure that erroneous comments on sea-level changes do not occur.
Thanks Jennifer for addressing the actual geological evidence honestly. Common “knowledge” just dismisses it, oh so casually.
On a lighter note, the popularly known “White Cliffs of Dover” (UK) are actually Cretaceous marine chalk deposits forming cliff lines along the sea front with occasional channels infilled with water-sorted pebbles and small boulders.
The narrow beaches formed from the eroded debris are mostly the pebbles and boulders, with fine chalk dust deposited further out on the sea fronts.
The point here is that the erosion of the cliff lines is startingly rapid (the chalk is obviously quite soft). So rapid in fact, that the quite informative museum on one beach front is now only about 10m from the failing cliff lines. Time to move …
There are also old stone fences near this museum, designed originally to keep sheep herded (I am told). The lines of these fences are abruptly cut by the cliff lines. Wave cut beach platforms indeed.
Thanks again Jennifer for a wonderful piece of research and concise summary.
I read only a few weeks ago (in the Guardian I think, please don’t get angry at the mere mention of that name, I know I do) about how we are seeing the effects of man made climate change on the rise in sea levels, etc etc mainly from melting ice caps etc etc, same old same old banter from them.
I really just have to laugh when i read this stuff, but unfortunately people believe it, sad I know.
Having lived by the coast (eastern suburbs of sydney) for a good part of my younger years I watched the sea and its behavior almost daily. I swam in it, I fished off high rocky platforms watching closely and carefully every time I fished there, I have seen massive storms. high seas that would the scare the pants off the climate alarmists, the spectacular sight of waves sending water where you would normally have dry land and the roar of waves crashing over the highest rock cliffs and so I have a good knowledge of that area.
I return almost annually to those rocky outlooks around Bronte, Covelly, Coogee etc and they never cease to amaze me in that they still look the same with a few extra rock falls here and there but I can still see the same old lower level rocky platforms that i walked on and around (just for fun and to satisfy the exploring adventure in me) at low tide for over 50 years now.
I don’t see any rise in the sea levels around there, Some erosion yes from the pounding waves but not rising sea levels. But then again I am not sure how you would measure the 1 or 2 mm allegedly sea level rises that get reported in those climate alarmist reports. But they are peer reviewed you know, and worst of all are accepted by the many, as truth, without question ! and that really gets under my skin.
keep up the great work Jen !
Yes Ed, sea levels have not risen in our lifetimes on the east coast of Australia and that is adjacent to the biggest piece of ocean in the world where all the atolls are increasing in size too:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
Always the talk is of “sea levels rising / falling”.
However, the sundry continental plates also seem to have vertical as well as horizontal movement.
If they don’t move up and down, at least in places, why can the Italians mine MARBLE, not limestone, thousands of feet above seal level? To make limestone, coral needs to be seriously buried under a LOT of detritus. Check how far above sea-level are the Jenolan Caves. To turn that limestone into marble, considerably greater pressure and a LOT of heat needs to be applied.
Back to Limestone: Think of the Limestone Karsts in south-east Asia; hundreds of feet tall, eroded from huge sheets of limestone, also hundreds of feet thick. How deeply was a vast and ancient coral reef buried to create such structures? How “tall” was such a reef before “burial”?
Other articles with evidence of sea level fall:
Brooke, B. et. al. Rates of Shoreline Progradation during the Last 1700 Years at Beachmere, Southeastern Queensland, Australia, Based on Optically Stimulated
Luminescence Dating of Beach Ridges
Article in Journal of Coastal Research · May 2008
Lewis, Stephen E., Wüst, Raphael A.J., Webster, Jody, M., Collins, John, Wright, Shelley, A., and Jacobsen, Geraldine (2015) Rapid relative sea-level fall along north-eastern Australia between 1200 and 800 cal. yr BP: an appraisal of the oyster evidence. Marine Geology, 370.