Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 4.10
Boulders stacked by
tsunami on the platform at the
south end of Oak Beach, North
Queensland. The largest boulder
is 4.0 m in diameter. Note the
smoothed bedrock surface with
evidence of large overlapping
muschelbrüche
Fig. 4.11
The eroded headland
at the north end of Oak Beach,
North Queensland. The flutes
protruding above the raised
platform surface face towards the
south-southeast, the same
direction as the alignment of
boulders shown in Fig.
4.10
4.5.3
Northwest West Australia
probably paleo-tsunami penetrated the reef through open-
ings such as Trinity Opening and Grafton Passage, which
are more than 10 km wide and between 60 and 70 m deep
points directly towards Trinity Opening. At other locations,
where the alignment of boulders is more alongshore, the
tsunami waves appear to have been trapped through
refraction and reflection between the reef and the mainland,
and by major headlands jutting from the coast at Cape
Tribulation and Cairns.
Signatures for both historical and paleo-tsunami—on a mas-
sive scale—exist along the coast of West Australia (Bryant
and Nott
2001
; Nott and Bryant
2003
; Nott
2004
). The June 3,
1994 Tsunami that originated in Indonesia swept the coast of
the North West Cape through gaps in the Ningaloo Reef,
resulting in the inland deposition of marine fauna, sand, and
isolated coral boulders up to 2 m in width. Coral boulders
were also swept through gaps in the coastal dunes and
