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Pilbara Region: Carnarvon, Pilbara and Canning Coasts

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Australian Coastal Systems

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

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Abstract

The Pilbara region extends from Exmouth Gulf to King Sound and includes the Pilbara deltaic coast, Eighty Mile Beach and the large low Dampier Peninsula and the adjoining King Sound. It is an arid region where the hot desert reaches the coast grading northward into monsoonal conditions, all exposed to tropical cyclones. Coastal sediments are a mix of shelf carbonate and terrigenous. Tides increase northwards from meso to mega, and waves are predominately low to moderate seas, all of which drive low rates of northerly sand transport, interrupted by numerous tidal creeks, limestone and bedrock shores and inflections in the coast. The beach systems are predominately tide-dominated shifting to tide-modified in more exposed northerly locations. Barriers are small to moderate in size and range from regressive beach-foredune ridges to some areas of moderate dune transgression. The region contains three geologically defined subregions: the southern Carnarvon Basin coast, the more rugged Pilbara with its seasonal rivers and bedrock and the long low Canning Basin coast. This chapter describes the processes, beaches, barriers and sediment transport in each of these subregions, all set within a framework of hierarchical 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). Pilbara Region: Carnarvon, Pilbara and Canning Coasts. In: Australian Coastal Systems. Coastal Research Library, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14294-0_4

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