Formation of beach‐ridge plains: an appreciation of the contribution by Jack L. Davies

A robust debate among coastal geomorphologists as to the processes by which beach‐ridge plains around Australia have formed was initiated by a former President of the Institute of Australian Geographers. This review gives special consideration to the work of Jack L. Davies, whose academic contributions to coastal geomorphology in Australia have not always been appropriately acknowledged when explaining how similar plains have evolved elsewhere in the world. Davies recognised that relatively steep storm waves caused erosion (cut) on beaches, whereas less steep long‐period swell waves returned sand (fill). He considered the beach berm to be the nucleus on which a beach ridge formed, which could subsequently develop into a foredune, in contrast to cobble ridges that were deposited during storms. Offshore conditions regulate supply of sand to the shoreline, partly through effects on wave refraction, with higher rates of supply where the nearshore is shallow. It was apparent to Davies that the elevation of successive ridges might, but not necessarily, provide evidence of past changes of sea level, despite adornment by variable amounts of windblown dune sand. Morphodynamic understanding of long‐term coastal evolution, based on radiocarbon dating chronologies, has demonstrated that Australian coastal plains formed over the past ~6,000 years when sea level has been close to its present level, in contrast to several documented locations in the northern hemisphere where the sea has been rising for the past few millennia. Particularly insightful were observations by Davies that ridge formation could be influenced by a range of factors including changes in sea level, storminess, or sediment supply. These factors acting singly or in combination seem likely to change in the future. Understanding such responses remains a high priority and can be addressed by new technologies, such as light detection and ranging, optically stimulated luminescence dating, ground‐penetrating radar, and computer simulation.     

Role of Infragravity Energy in Bar Formation in a Strong‐Wind Bay: Observations from Seaford Beach,Port Phillip Bay,Australia

Measurements of the surf zone wave field and morphology were obtained from a multi‐barred beach in a fetch‐limited, strong‐wind bay (Seaford, southeastern Australia) during both low‐ and high‐energy conditions. Analysis of the infragravity energy present during high‐energy events (onshore winds >7 ms^?1) revealed that it was broad‐banded, consisting of a mixture of standing and progressive motions and displaying daily variations in standing wave length scales. Infragravity standing waves were therefore not considered significant to the formation and migration of bars at Seaford during this study, with bar behaviour during high energy events potentially attributable to either breaking wave‐bed return flow and/or self‐organisational mechanisms.     

Storm Tide Recurrence Intervals – A Statistical Approach Using Beach Ridge Plains in Northern Australia

The marine inundation generated by Tropical Cyclone Yasi, north Queensland, February 2011, flooded at least 130 beachfront homes and many commercial businesses, becoming the most substantial marine inundation impact in Australia's modern history. As a consequence, guidelines for building in storm tide impact areas have been developed and discussions are beginning on whether Australia needs a national standard for buildings impacted by these events. Central to this will be determining which areas of coastal land need to be subjected to the standard, and this will likely be based upon the magnitude of a particular return interval event. The veracity of the current method for determining these return intervals is difficult to determine as there has been no objective way to assess the accuracy of this approach. One such method is developed here – applying extreme value theory statistics to millennial scale sedimentary records of tropical cyclone marine inundations. The approach is applied to a 5000‐year‐long beach ridge record of tropical cyclone inundations near Tully Heads and the results suggest that the inundation generated by Tropical Cyclone Yasi here had a return interval of approximately 1000 years. This is a substantially lower figure than the approximately 5000‐year return interval suggested by the currently accepted approach. Irrespective of which method is more accurate, the marine inundation generated by Yasi was a very rare event and one that may become more common under a future altered climate.     

Beach body work: Australian women’s experiences

This article examines Australian women’s complex relationship with the beach through a focus on affect and on what bodies do. Interviews with ten participants of diverse backgrounds and of different ages reveal that women understand the beach as a mediated and surveilled space where their bodies are foregrounded. In this environment, there is an intersection of women’s knowledge of the popular constructions of the archetypal Australian beach body, real women’s bodies, and interviewees’ experiences of the beach as a place of shame and pride. As a means of managing this affective landscape participants detail a range of bodily strategies enacted prior to going to the beach and once at the beach. This bodily labour demonstrates that for Australian women the beach is a dynamic and complicated site of both leisure and labour.     

赵恺先生与遵义文化

赵乃康先生是民国时期遵义文化杰出的代表人物之一。是沙滩文化传人;遵义文化教育的名师楷模;《续遵义府志》总纂;一生为推动遵义教育事业和遵义文化的发展作出了积极贡献。     

A beach of their own: The creation of the gender-segregated beach in Tel Aviv

This article examines the struggle for gender-segregated sea bathing in Tel Aviv from the first calls for gender segregation in the 1920s until 1966, when the city of Tel Aviv established a beach for men and women to swim separately. The most effective demands for gender segregation were framed in a civic and not religious discourse. Rather than claiming that gender-segregated swimming was against Jewish values, the ultra-Orthodox party Agudat Yisrael effectively argued that a lack of separate swimming violated their rights as taxpayers who had the right to bathe in the sea just as any other Israeli citizen.     

The Myth of Bondi's Black Sunday

On 6 February 1938, five bathers drowned while swimming between the flags at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia. In surf lifesaving history, the day is known as Black Sunday. The dominant heroic narrative of Black Sunday highlights freak surf conditions and the gallantry, efficiency, and adeptness of Bondi's volunteer surf lifesavers. In this article I analyse this representation as a myth. Here I employ the French philosopher Roland Barthes' concept of myth, not as a falsehood, but as simplistic story, replete with silences and devoid of critical assessment. I argue that the myth of Black Sunday served the interests of Surf Life Saving Australia well in establishing its status as the country's premier safety service. However, the culture that underpinned that myth still persists with ongoing ramifications for risk assessment at the beach.     

Land-beach-risk-scape: deciphering the motivators of risk-taking at the beach in Australia

Abstract

This article considers risk-taking associated with the popular leisure activity of beach going in Australia. It investigates the risk-taking proclivities and cultural protocols in Australian beach use which, to date, have received little research attention. Drawing on the testimonies of beachgoers, we provide a discussion on how risk can be both voluntary as well as accidental at the Australian beach. While accidental risk-taking can be attributed to a lack of beachscape safety or lack of hazard knowledge, it is often the result of peer, sociocultural and psychodynamic influences that result in the production and reproduction of a pervasive culture of risk-taking. This culture is explored via the influence of the enculturation of risk into Australian beach practices, the attenuation of safety perceptions among beachgoers, and the attraction to risky behaviours that affect those in the beach space. The reproduction of risk in Australian beach use and the feeling of attachment observed among research participants have been conceptualised as the embodied societal subject, as identified through geographic psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic geographic interpretation of participant attitudes and beliefs concerning risk-taking and beach use has been used to theorise how the prevailing discourses and fantasies of Australian beach use shape this site-specific culture of risk.     

Scottish Landform Example 40: The Buchan Gravels Formation: A Remnant Deposit of a Palaeo-landscape

Abstract

The Buchan Gravels Formation (BGF) takes the form of a series of gravel deposits of intriguing age and origin in North-East Scotland. The BGF is divided into two geographically-distinct groups, the Windy Hills Gravel Member (WHGM) and the Buchan Ridge Gravel Member (BRGM). The WHGM occurs in central Buchan, and is predominantly composed of quartzite gravels considered to have been deposited by eastwardly-flowing rivers. In contrast the BRGM is found in eastern Buchan, and is composed largely of flint-rich gravels, the precise origins of which are still under debate. Both gravel members are of considerable age, judging by the number of rotted clasts they contain. In addition, both presently occupy high ground, despite seeming to have originated as water-lain deposits. Although of unknown age, the BGF members provide evidence of topographic inversion since their deposition, and quite possibly preglacial age.     

Beach Morphodynamics in Australia 1970s–2010

A seminal publication by Wright and Thom on coastal morphodynamics followed by a detailed yet expansive range of beach field experiments resulted in the publication of Wright and Short, which presented a fresh morphodynamic approach to the study of beaches. The development of the morphodynamic approach to coastal systems had its origin at Louisiana State University in the 1960–1970s, where Thom, Wright, and Short were students during this period. On their respective returns to Australia in the 1970s, they utilised the vast Australian coastal environment to apply this approach across a wide range of coastal settings and time frames developing the now universal wave‐dominated beach model, followed later by tide‐modified and tide‐dominated beach models, as well as a fresh approach to dunes, barriers, estuaries, and the shoreface. This paper reviews the emergence of the morphodynamic approach in Australia and its subsequent impacts.