Victoria: The East Gippsland Coast (Corner Inlet to Cape Howe)

Introduction

East from Corner Inlet the escarpment bounding the South Gippsland Highlands, on Cretaceous rocks along the Gelliondale Monocline, recedes behind a widening coastal plain of Pliocene and Pleistocene sands and clays. This plain is crossed by Tarra River, Bruthen Creek, Merrimans Creek and some smaller streams, and shows scarps and undulations that may be the result of Pleistocene and Holocene tectonic movements.

They include the Lake Wellington depression to the NE, part of the down-warped zone occupied by the Gippsland Lakes. Between Yarram and Woodside, and NE to Sale and Bairnsdale, the landscape carries scattered ridges of Pleistocene quartzose dune sand, often of parabolic form, which may have been coastal sand barriers rearranged by westerly winds during a more arid period (Jenkin 1968).

Large quantities of sand have been deposited on the East Gippsland coast as beaches, barriers and dunes in Quaternary times. The sand is predominantly quartzose, with only small...