RISING SEA LEVELS at CROKER ISLAND

-

Greetings from Croker Island, NT.

Recently we have experienced some very high tides around Croker Island. Numerous elders have commented to the rangers that they do not recall the sea water ever being as high. Below - a photo of a casuarina tree with most of its roots exposed. The floodplain mentioned later in this post is just just on the other side of the trees on the left of this photo. 


At the southern tip of Croker Island is an abandoned pearl farm. The high tides have entered the work area and have eroded the sand from around the front line of posts.

In the north of the island a sign fell over after the sand it stood in was wash away.

Smaller casuarina trees have died and toppled into the water.

Others are close to toppling. 

It was rather timely that we had a visit this week from a scientist wanting to research areas that may have been covered by salt water in the past when sea levels were higher than they are today. The Google Earth image below shows the main floodplain area on Croker Island with the beach in the top left corner. The lines on the floodplain running roughly parallel to the beach are where the beach or coastline was many years ago. 

The next image shows a line from the beach extending right up to the top end of the floodplain. Below the image is an elevation profile along this line. The left hand end represents the area nearest the beach and shows these old sand dunes where the coastline was many years ago. What surprise me when I saw this elevation profile was that it will only take a small rise in sea levels for this floodplain to be permanently flooded with salt water.

The scientist are drilling core samples around the floodplain and then by analysing these samples they can identify what animals and plants have lived here and at what times in the past. They are also seeking to hear from the older residents here what changes they have noticed in their lifetimes or maybe have heard stories of changes from previous generations. We took some older women out to clay pan near a creek this week. The women hadn't been to this area for some years. They were surprised to see the clay pan is now nearly all covered with mangroves - a strong indication that salt water is coming further inland than it used to. 

It appears that rising sea levels is not just something that happens in low lying islands in faraway places. 

Cheers for now

Bryan


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A GRAND DAUGHTER - WELCOME AMELIA

-
Image
Hi everyone,  Recently a beautiful granddaughter joined our family - welcome Amelia. We were able to meet her while visiting Darwin recently. Below are a few photos of Amelia with Granny and Pa. What a blessing she is! Noah is growing quickly. He does not have to be asked twice to go to the nearby playground. Noah and Amelia getting to know each other - beautiful!! Laura has recently been touring in Italy and Croatia. She had a ball and already has a few ideas for the next trip. She is coming to Darwin next weekend for a friend's wedding - we are all looking forward to catching up again. Nancy and I are flying into Darwin for the weekend. Noah - keeping us all laughing. Sadly, Kristy, Amelia and Laura were not in this happy photo. Jayson changed jobs earlier this year. This sees him working anywhere in and around Darwin and recently he has been back at Tindal RAAF Base near Katherine as part of the major upgrades happening there at the moment. Noah really looks forward to when uncl...
Read more

IFFV - Illegal Foreign Fishing Vessels

-
Image
Hi  For a few months now we have been reporting Illegal Foreign Fishing Vessels (IFFVs) in our area. Some may have seen reports of Indigenous rangers in the Kimberley's, WA discovering IFFVs, often hiding in creeks and sometimes actually going ashore and camping. Concerningly, we have had the same issues around here. Apart from the illegal fishing aspect there is also a very real biosecurity risk. Indonesian has many diseases that we do not want in Australia - Foot and Mouth, Rabies etc. Last Monday we observed an IFFV in the area where we were conducting our marine research - but more about that later. Firstly, let's back up a little.  Last year we detected an IFFV near McClure Island - see the photo below. The crew were apprehended and the vessel destroyed. A couple of months ago we reported sightings of IFFVs around Croker Island and the adjacent mainland.  Around 3 weeks ago we discovered three IFFVs and one canoe hiding in the creek near where we subsequently setup o...
Read more

FAMILY, FIRES, HELICOPTERS and CARBON ABATEMENT

-
Image
 Hi Last weekend we flew into Darwin for the weekend. Laura was flying up to Darwin for a friend's wedding. She had not met niece Amelia yet so I think the wedding was more of an excuse.  Dean, Kristy and their little family.  Aunty Laura meets Amelia. Granny and Pa with our grandchildren - a real blessing.  While in Darwin a friend from Inverness in Scotland was passing through Darwin. It was great catching up with Bev.  Trevor and Leonie were in town for the wedding. Leonie and Nancy met in the maternity ward in Gove hospital back in 1984. We have kept in touch even since.  Recently the Garngi rangers have been busy with our carbon abatement early dry season 'cool' burning. This involves both ground and aerial burning and if done well reduces the amount of carbon that ends up in the atmosphere. We receive some good income from this work.  For the aerial burning we use a Robinson R44 helicopter. The rear left door is removed and an incendiary machine ...
Read more