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Southwest Division

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Australian Coastal Systems

Part of the book series: Coastal Research Library ((COASTALRL,volume 32))

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Abstract

The southwest Western Australian division extends for 2575 km from Cape Leeuwin north to Exmouth Gulf. In doing so it straddles the Perth and Carnarvon basins and shifts from temperate humid in the south to the hot arid in the north. The entire coast is exposed to the persistent moderate to high southwest swell, with micro-tides until Exmouth Gulf. Breaker wave height, however, varies considerably owing to inshore limestone platform and shore parallel calcarenite reefs. The Leeuwin Current delivers warm tropical water down the coast maintaining the world’s most poleward fringing coral reefs and atolls. Several rivers and numerous streams reach the coast most terminating in usually closed estuaries. Coastal sediments are predominately shelf-derived carbonates together with seagrass sourced carbonate banks in sheltered areas including Shark Bay. This chapter describes the divisions, geology, climate and coastal processes and reviews the estuaries, beaches, barriers and sediment compartments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Andrew D. Short

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  1. Andrew D. Short
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Short, A.D. (2020). Southwest Division. In: Australian Coastal Systems. Coastal Research Library, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14294-0_31

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