Geologist here. The clear cut cross-bedding visible at Dalkieth and other locations within the Tamala Limestone indicate a shallow marine deposition. Cross bedding in my experience has always been marine, not aeolian. Dunes don't sweep back and forth, they move in one general direction for long periods of time.
Hello hj, I am just back from the UK where I made a point of visiting some locations with sand dunes, notably Formby Beach near Liverpool, a place I have studied in the past. The dunes here do sweep back and forth as they are built and then eroded over several years. I have video of cross bedding in the erosion face of a dune which shows the exact same cross bedding as the Tamala Limestone. I will be putting out a short video showing this in the next few days. Also, calling Tamala a Limestone is a bit of a misnomer as it is an eolianite (aolianite) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolianite
Thanks. As a Perthian, i am familiar with the locations. Now I have a story to tell every time i go to the beach. I thought that the shell layers would have been caused by higher sea levels, but the tsunami hypothesis makes sense. Well done and thanks again..👍
Thank you. I still have to mark this as a theory needing more research. But it fits the evidence. A geologically recent coastal land deposit with marine layers at a location that was above sea level for millions of years before the deposits were formed. On a coastline that has been subject to tsunamis since the formation of the Indian Ocean 100 million years ago.
On the other side of the Swan River from where you videoed the Dalkeith footage, at Freshwater Bay, near the Scotch College boat shed, there is a small cave. It's just north of the shed. Just to the south of the cave, you can find what was termed (when I was at school) a "raised beach," where shells and even sharks teeth, have been dug out of the cliff face in the past. It's worth spending an afternoon exploring the cliffs in that area. There are all sorts of remains of marine creatures, embedded in the cliff faces there.
Oh wow. Thanks for the heads up. I am always looking for interesting spots to explore and video. I am used to seeing things like raised beaches in the UK, but along this coast, which has not seen any crustal uplift since before the Tamala Limestone deposits began, how did they get there? More investigation and study needed.
@@WATsunami If you go to Jacks Hill in the Pilbara you will find the oldest rocks on earth. 4.4 billion years old. Do it in the cooler months otherwise too hot. Tom price 450km;s inland of the coast, there you will find sea shells in the and around road side culverts. Also then search up the 4 major events of the Pilbara in which the Pilbara basin was swallowed up by the sea. Hence the concentration of minerals.
Please do not go exposing special places to the entire internet and especially not to these pseudo science misinformation experts. Maybe they can tell us about where they are from but I find this video to be patronising and ill informed. Leave the sacred site caves alone.
I would debate that it's a "special place ." There has been a broad and well used walking path past that cave and the rock face, for well over a century. My late grandfather used to fish from the rocks on the river side of the path when he was a child, back in the late 1890's, as did I in the 1960's. Anyone walking around the Scotch boatshed area can see the cliff face I spoke of. There is nothing special about it. Unless the local councils have recently blocked it off, one can follow the path right around to the Christ Church boat shed , near the Claremont yacht club. It is narrow in places, mainly between Anstey St and Osborne Pde , but is still navigable. The cave itself was investigated by UWA in the 1960's, and they found no traces of continued occupation. They interviewed my late grandfather extensively over it, and Indegenous activities in the area. If you want to save Indegenous sites , then start with the Freshwater Bay yacht club, which is built on the site of a where local tribespeople used to live. They taught my grandfather how to spear fish in Freshwater Bay. As for whether the video contains so called"misinformation," is also your opinion, which you are entitled to. But If you think it's wrong, then why not make your own video, with a counter argument and post it, rather than just post accusations of it being "misleading," without anything to back up your statement?
@@BellakelpieFirstly it's good to hear your background knowledge dating back.. Secondly, any cave is sacred when you consider the activities occurring before Stirling sailed up that river. Thirdly k am pretty sure I made it clear as to examples of misinformation. Trying to say that limestone is sandstone is obviously very wrong and incorrect. Trying to also say that a granite boulder breaking in half is evidence of a tsunami, with no other possible explanation, is obviously amateur pseudo science and wrong.
Love the WA tsunami content ... but Boranup beach and Contos beach are quite some distance apart for a rock to be at both. Though I'll endeavour to find it. Cheers Or is Boranup representative of larger area and the rock is at Contos?
@@and__lam1152 Yes in this context I am referring to the several kilometres of the coastline adjacent to the ridge as Boranup, with Contos a small section thereof. If you plug the map reference in to Google Maps you should see the boulder in question.
@@WATsunami Thanks for the response. Yeah I went back to the start to see it again and got the coordinates after posting ... I've been there before didn't notice it but keen to go back now. Thanks
@@and__lam1152 I have not made it to that location yet myself. I hope to get there in a couple of months, and I will be surveying the boulders by drone with the intention of making a 3D model of them.
You have misunderstood the proposed tamale limestone history in my opinion. The exposed tamale limestone outcrops at peppermint Grove, cottesloe and black wall reach all show regressive sequences, with a transition from marine through swash and beach zone to aeolian dunes. I.e. with lower intact shells and worm burrows, then 10cm pr so size cross beds consistent with channels and surf zone, symmetrical ripples consistent with shore, near horrizontal laminations consistent with beach and swash, and finally meter plus scale cross beds consistent with aeolian dunes. There are also root casts and solution tunes from the Forrest ecosystems that proceed the dune environment in the transgressive sequence. The large scale cross beds also indicate a south West predominant wind direction, I.e. the Freo Doctor sea breeze. Marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 7, 9 and 11 all potentially exceeded modern sea level within the last half million years. Tsunami deposits on the other hand would not deposit layers of well sorted sediments, but rather poorly sorted breccias which would include mixed shells, most broken, as well as other fragments. None of those layers represent anything like that. I'm not denying the possibility of past tsunamis on the wa coast, but these rocks are absolutely not evidence for them. Double major geology and teacher of earth and environmental science by the way.
We have a lot of limestone here in Mandurah and on the beach you can see the remains of tree stumps that the limestone now fills as well as trunk roots winding their way down which is petrified. Fascinating to imagine s the bush/trees once occupied the area which is now just a beach.
I was looking at some dead trees and stumps in the marshland near the Leschenault Peninsula a few days ago. Would be great to see when they were growing.
Thank you for making this video , I was born Here in western Australia and ive lived here most of my life. Ive often studdied the geological rocks here in WA trying to understand the geographical past. If possible please examine the rocks of the Murchison shire as ive often found fossilsed evidence of a mega flood that i believe could have stretched from tom price to canarvon. I believe for a short period it may have been a inland sea. Is there anyway i can contact you as im fascinated by the west Australian geology.
Thank you Duncan. I don't know much about the geology of Murchison beyond what I can read in the text books. Checking online resources I think this area may well have been the location of a shallow sea in distant geological past some 300 million years ago so I would expect to see some marine limestones with fossils.
A couple of observations puzzle me. In places the cross bedding looks of a scale that is not compatible with dune formation i.e. you would expect to see larger cross bedding if eolian. In addition the fact that the Tamala Limestone is roughly consistent in its lithology over such a large area and such a vast timescale 180 mya to 140 kya suggests that the process of formation was continuous, uniform and responded to cycles (i.e. rising and falling sea levels). Sure the limestone formation might have encountered a few tsunamis along the way (evidenced by the granite boulders sitting on the limestone), but these tsunamis were merely mosquito bites on the elephant.
I am just back from a trip to the UK and made the point of visiting a location, Formby Beach on Merseyside, where there are wind blown sand dunes that are also eroding in some areas. I was careful to find a location and have images and video of an eroded dune, and there in the sand are the same cross bedding features with the exact same scale as seen at Dalkeith in this video. Each visible cross bedding feature represents the face of the dune for a short time before the wind covered this layer with a few millimetres of new sand and creates a new layer. I do think the Tamala Limestone is a continuous feature, and the shell layers are very interesting.
The Two Rocks were islands before the marina was built, Perth sits on the oldest tectonic plate on earth 4•5 billion and the sea level has risen and ebbed over that time creating the limestone coastal plain, which is really only fish poop💫🙏💞
It's not so much that there is a backing track, it's more that there needs to be a greater ratio between the narration and the soundtrack - UA-cam is peppered with content with the same issue - I wonder if @WATsunami will accommodate us for future episodes?
There's an oyster shell deposit near the Greenfield Street footbridge over the Canning River in Cannington. I'd assumed these had lived there when the sea level was higher. Now I'm wondering if they were washed upstream by the tsunami.
Are they in the Tamala Limestone or in loose sand? Since I made this video I have done a bit more research and on balance these are more likely beach deposits from a time when sea levels were even higher than today.
@@WATsunami They're about 17km inland from the coast. There's no limestone that far east. They're 15m north of the river sitting in alluvium. I think the elevation is 4-5m ASL so it wouldn't take much to inundate this spot. Given the size & violence of the tsunami I don't suppose it would leave confined deposits of shells like these. I can't find fine scale data on sea levels that would confirm this spot was once underwater, just data showing stable sea levels over the last 6k years.
@@cristop5 I have done a bit more research on this since I put the video out, and now I'm leaning towards this being a shallow marine deposit from a time sea levels were even higher than present.
@@WATsunami Thanks. I hope you'll present your findings here. Today I found limestone in East Cannington, about 20km inland from the coast. This area is within the Bassendean Dune system which I understood to be free from limestone.
Thank you. I have drone footage of many chevrons in my other videos, and I will be doing an in depth look at an individual chevron in a couple of episodes time, including some 3d mapping.
it's foolish to do a google earth 'study' of this part of the WA coast and disregard the effect of the howling sea breezes that prevail from south to north. Any of these so called tsunami chevrons are just as likely to be wind blown dune formations. I'm pretty sure I saw the same sensationalist claims about 'chevrons' in the video and I laughed at the claims made for the origin of natural dunes in coastal locations I have spent my life exploring.
@@noelwhittle7922 Hello Noel, I'm just back from a trip to the UK where I have been making further studies of wind blow sand dunes. I will be compiling this information in to a future episode. There are three points worth noting about the WA sand dunes that should be considered. 1, the orientation of the WA chevrons bear no relationship to the prevailing winds. 2, wind blown sand dunes are not found on the tops of cliffs, unlike the chevron dunes in the south west of WA which are. 3, wind blown sand dunes do not contain sea shell fragments, unlike the chevron dunes in the south west of WA which do contain shell fragments. Could you please elaborate on the sand dunes areas you have explored?
@@WATsunami "..natural dunes (which are ) in coastal locations I have spent my life exploring ( or working)" . But for background, as a surfer and windsurfer, & remote area worker, I have walked in, driven through, or flown over in light planes & helicopters, every coastal location from Cape Leeuwin to Exmouth Cape. And, to be clear, it was the other video I was referring to, in reply to the post by Tony. And, I have no doubt that a number of tsunamis have occurred. However, the whole of the coastal plain from Dunsborough to Geraldton carry clear evidence of the higher sea levels in the past, ( search for LIDAR images of Dunsborough - Vasse for ancient dune lines in the bush at Carbanup ) so it makes sense that any stranded dune systems will most likely be the dune system from the old sea shore lines or old coastal estuary shore lines, therefore any shell evidence is not necessarily an out-of-place artifact. You need to be careful with your claim that the chevrons bear no relationship to prevailing winds, in that they have been there thousands of years and the area between Bunbury and Jurien Bay is subject to incredibly strong winds during winter from the North West through to the South West and that wind still has full strength 20km inland from the coast. In Australia, wind blown dunes are wherever there is sand, minimal vegetation, and strong winds.
Most of it has been good discussion. A few times if has pointed out areas I have got wrong and I have to hold my hand up and acknowledge. I am looking to form the best theory regarding the evidence I am gathering so its always welcome.
His friend took a picture one week before the split for memory, I can ask, it may be a long shot, but 200 metres from there, lays a pink crystal belt running through the granite on and off between tens of miles and branches off as though veins from an artery
@@traviswalker6176 Thanks. I have not yet been to this spot, so I am relying on the paper referenced in the video. I am hoping to get here and do a 3D model of this particular rock. I am curious to see the edge of the break, and make a guess at how recent it looks to me. I think it should be possible to get an estimate of the rate of granite woolsack weathering at this location. I will keep you posted.
I have heard several terms to describe the Tamala Limestone, and the fact it has both wind blown and water lain deposits means it does not easily fit in to other more standard categories for either limestone or sandstone.
Look at the Burkle Crater event. It’s been attributed to the Indian Ocean tsunamis from deep sea soils and organisms, found on land in WA, India and Madagascar. Worth a read.
Hello J. I have looked at a lot of the information regarding the Burkle Crater during the research for this series. Simply, there is no evidence for it. Plus, we are not looking at a single event here, but multiple repeated tsunamis which are mostly likely generated on the continental slope. Have you watched Episode 5 in this series?
Possibly yes. I am now leaning towards these shell layers being shallow beach deposits. I'm still curious as to the when though, as this would have to mean the global sea level was higher when this was happening. Which then questions the aeolianite nature of the cross banded sand deposits. More research needed.
Hello Tyrone. Sorry about the delay. Yes with more research and evidence. I would expect more fragmentation of bivalve shells. Right now I am thinking this is most likely to be a shallow marine beach deposit during higher eustatic sea levels. I will be getting shell samples carbon dated in coming months.
You'll be OK say 20 meters above sea level, until the next ice age and interglacial which seems to kick off the mega high continental slope avalanche events.
Same as the Tafelberg Sand stone we find in in South Africa and the layers of magma..... the gray bands I saw might be Kimberlight..... the same we found diamonds in.
No I don't think it is related. The formation of Tamala Limestone eolianite is due of the cycle of glacial and interglacial periods spanning the last one or two million years. When the sea level drops the sand is blown in and the deposits form.
Sea level was so low during the younger dryas that you could walk to Rottnest. The Noongar people have stories and song lines about hunting grounds and waterholes that are now the sea floor between Perth and Rotto, believe it or not!
@@jacksoncarr5206 Yes Rottnest was still part of the mainland up to around 6000 or so years ago. The Tamala Limestone would accumulate during ages when the sea level was much lower, but that was in a previous epoch and long before human habitation in Australia.
I live in Perth in the northern suburbs. You only have to go 30 kilometers inland to Bullsbrook and surrounding suburbs and you can find seashells lying on the ground. Surely this is also evidence of tsunami at some point in time.
Hello Rogue, this is the exact sort of evidence I am looking for. Do you have any locations you can point me to? Sea shell fragments in an undisturbed sand layer will be our Holy Grail.
There are basically no geologists in WA who support your tsunami idea, and one thing Perth has an abundance of is highly qualified and expert geologists. The swan coastal plain sand dune deposits and limestone are the products of in situ weathering and alluvial and fluvial deposits.
I have read several documents discussing the mix of aeolian sand dunes and marine sediments in Tamala Limestone, but none which discussed how contradictory these different layers are. Wind blown sand dunes can only contain fine particles, and sea shells cannot be blown by the wind. As far as I am aware this is the first time the tsunami theory has been proposed. Do you have any sources you can cite refuting this idea?
Gondwana. The separating of the Australian section from the India plate. Curtin uni has a published, peer reviewed paper on the techtonic activity as it relates to this part of Australia. No mention of Tsunami in the paper. I believe the limestone deposits are evidence that the area was once under the sea.
@@Colin56ish It's called Tamala Limestone, but the type of deposit is called an eolianite, which are land based lithified coastal sand dunes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolianite The question here is, how did layers of marine sediments get interspaced with land deposits? I agree, so far, no one else has mentioned possible tsunami events.
I have followed the Carolina Bays, US story closely. A. Zamora has proven beyond a reasonable doubt they are secondary impact craters on unconsolidated ground yet many geologists hang on to the idea of aeolian/lacustrine formation. The bays show zero evidence of a/l formation and much evidence of impact structure.
That is not the origin of WA tsunamis, continental shelf landslides during ice are sea level changes are the cause. The Burkle Crater has all just about been debunked.
There has been many Tsunami from cataclysmic origins throughout the 4.5mill years of this rock, the evidence is everywhere and certainly not down to one certain thing.....there are many theories out there, good luck in your search
The two rocks use to be one rock but in the war they used to use it at target practice and that’s why it’s now two rocks and that also explains why there is a reef that runs out between the the 2 rocks
It's not sandstone no matter how much you want it to be, all the research has already been done We know the processes of the creation of the swan coastal plain very well
I did see that video but I am trying to follow actual evidence that can be verified which is why I give things location co-ordinates of the evidence I study. And, there is zero evidence for the Burkle Crater, and increasing evidence for multiple Indian Ocean continental slope tsunami events probably linked to ice age and interglacial sea level changes.
@@carlpayne8791These internet experts are doing my head in trying to be experts but without a clue and not even from here. Typically they will get local rego plates on their car and start telling the locals all about the place, then start trying to change our lifestyle and culture to fit their own agenda. Another tsunami must surely be due by now... Not of immigration, but an actual wave.
This was well documented by mob and others in the Pilbara. You are wrong they do not say this is how it happened. The rock art is a 9000 year timeline. Stop making stuff up dude.
Love the video 😊 but my friend you are near but not close😅 . But much respect... Step 3 meters from the rock to the water 😅 you will figure it out. Same same but different
Its called "limestone" because its made from lime. Pretty basic. Its not made of "sand". People from other countries do love to come here and tell us all about the place we are from, and tell us how to live and stories about the things we clearly grew up around. We don't need all these foreigners coming here, telling us their BS. Its a bit like more colonialism, after too much already. In their foreign accents they think we must be from Mars and are just visiting. Limestone can form wherever there is lime, and at one time water. This video in my opinion is just BS.
Correct there are basically no geologists in WA who support this tsunami idea, and one thing Perth has an abundance of is highly qualified and expert geologists.
I work building limestone (not natural) retaining walls in yanchep and two rocks alot and deal with digging in to the rock we call the hard top layer cap rock and then theres normally softer shelly pockets underneath and also see what looks like old coral too you should have a look in new developments around there for some holes with the layers exposed or in the old limestone quarries in the area. Great vid always wondering bout the rocks
Thank you. I actually have a couple of quarry visits planned on my to do list to investigate this type of thing some more. Do you have any current or near future projects that I might be able to come and take samples at? I can be free at a days notice to visit any location within a couple of hours of the CBD. If we can find widespread shell layers, this rules out the river theory of the shell layers, and makes the tsunami theory more likely.
@@WATsunamitake a look at the wave cut platform at cottesloe, just south of the stairs down at cottesloe reef. The potholes on that platform have fossil corral that has grown in situ, covering eroded root casts, you'llfind several examples if it's not buried in weed. That could only occur if sea level was several meters higher than present and warmer than now. 100% not transported, you can see the coral encrusting the eroded surface, what would constitute a diaconformity were it buried. There is in fact a disconformity visible right at the bottom of those stairs, with broken shell layers atop layered sand. Consistent with a transgressive sequence on an eroded aeolian deposit.
@@jacksoncarr5206 I have been to that location many times, but I was not looking for coral as such. I will have a very close look in the next few weeks.
Geologist here. The clear cut cross-bedding visible at Dalkieth and other locations within the Tamala Limestone indicate a shallow marine deposition. Cross bedding in my experience has always been marine, not aeolian. Dunes don't sweep back and forth, they move in one general direction for long periods of time.
Hello hj, I am just back from the UK where I made a point of visiting some locations with sand dunes, notably Formby Beach near Liverpool, a place I have studied in the past. The dunes here do sweep back and forth as they are built and then eroded over several years. I have video of cross bedding in the erosion face of a dune which shows the exact same cross bedding as the Tamala Limestone. I will be putting out a short video showing this in the next few days. Also, calling Tamala a Limestone is a bit of a misnomer as it is an eolianite (aolianite) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolianite
The dunes by us sweep back and forth by over a mile over the last 30 years
@@Voting-does-nothing what region?
I really enjoy your videos.
Glad you like them.
This is great 😂❤
I love going down south . Now I can see rocks in a different way.
Thank you.
lovely coastline all along there ! 👍
Excellent presentation - finally, someone who understands anchoring/visual reference/scale - ty
Thank you. I am trying to make sure everything I present can be verified by anyone who wants to visit the locations.
Thanks. As a Perthian, i am familiar with the locations. Now I have a story to tell every time i go to the beach. I thought that the shell layers would have been caused by higher sea levels, but the tsunami hypothesis makes sense. Well done and thanks again..👍
Thank you. I still have to mark this as a theory needing more research. But it fits the evidence. A geologically recent coastal land deposit with marine layers at a location that was above sea level for millions of years before the deposits were formed. On a coastline that has been subject to tsunamis since the formation of the Indian Ocean 100 million years ago.
@WATsunami sounds good to me mate. Keep up the good work 👍
Western Australia is beautiful I love it . We are so lucky in this state and in fact the whole country .
agreed
On the other side of the Swan River from where you videoed the Dalkeith footage, at Freshwater Bay, near the Scotch College boat shed, there is a small cave. It's just north of the shed. Just to the south of the cave, you can find what was termed (when I was at school) a "raised beach," where shells and even sharks teeth, have been dug out of the cliff face in the past.
It's worth spending an afternoon exploring the cliffs in that area. There are all sorts of remains of marine creatures, embedded in the cliff faces there.
Oh wow. Thanks for the heads up. I am always looking for interesting spots to explore and video. I am used to seeing things like raised beaches in the UK, but along this coast, which has not seen any crustal uplift since before the Tamala Limestone deposits began, how did they get there? More investigation and study needed.
@@WATsunami If you go to Jacks Hill in the Pilbara you will find the oldest rocks on earth. 4.4 billion years old. Do it in the cooler months otherwise too hot. Tom price 450km;s inland of the coast, there you will find sea shells in the and around road side culverts. Also then search up the 4 major events of the Pilbara in which the Pilbara basin was swallowed up by the sea. Hence the concentration of minerals.
Please do not go exposing special places to the entire internet and especially not to these pseudo science misinformation experts.
Maybe they can tell us about where they are from but I find this video to be patronising and ill informed.
Leave the sacred site caves alone.
I would debate that it's a "special place ." There has been a broad and well used walking path past that cave and the rock face, for well over a century. My late grandfather used to fish from the rocks on the river side of the path when he was a child, back in the late 1890's, as did I in the 1960's. Anyone walking around the Scotch boatshed area can see the cliff face I spoke of. There is nothing special about it. Unless the local councils have recently blocked it off, one can follow the path right around to the Christ Church boat shed , near the Claremont yacht club. It is narrow in places, mainly between Anstey St and Osborne Pde , but is still navigable.
The cave itself was investigated by UWA in the 1960's, and they found no traces of continued occupation. They interviewed my late grandfather extensively over it, and Indegenous activities in the area. If you want to save Indegenous sites , then start with the Freshwater Bay yacht club, which is built on the site of a where local tribespeople used to live. They taught my grandfather how to spear fish in Freshwater Bay.
As for whether the video contains so called"misinformation," is also your opinion, which you are entitled to. But If you think it's wrong, then why not make your own video, with a counter argument and post it, rather than just post accusations of it being "misleading," without anything to back up your statement?
@@BellakelpieFirstly it's good to hear your background knowledge dating back..
Secondly, any cave is sacred when you consider the activities occurring before Stirling sailed up that river.
Thirdly k am pretty sure I made it clear as to examples of misinformation.
Trying to say that limestone is sandstone is obviously very wrong and incorrect.
Trying to also say that a granite boulder breaking in half is evidence of a tsunami, with no other possible explanation, is obviously amateur pseudo science and wrong.
WA local here. Absolutely loving this.
thank you
Love the WA tsunami content ... but Boranup beach and Contos beach are quite some distance apart for a rock to be at both. Though I'll endeavour to find it. Cheers
Or is Boranup representative of larger area and the rock is at Contos?
@@and__lam1152 Yes in this context I am referring to the several kilometres of the coastline adjacent to the ridge as Boranup, with Contos a small section thereof. If you plug the map reference in to Google Maps you should see the boulder in question.
@@WATsunami Thanks for the response. Yeah I went back to the start to see it again and got the coordinates after posting ... I've been there before didn't notice it but keen to go back now. Thanks
@@and__lam1152 I have not made it to that location yet myself. I hope to get there in a couple of months, and I will be surveying the boulders by drone with the intention of making a 3D model of them.
You have misunderstood the proposed tamale limestone history in my opinion. The exposed tamale limestone outcrops at peppermint Grove, cottesloe and black wall reach all show regressive sequences, with a transition from marine through swash and beach zone to aeolian dunes. I.e. with lower intact shells and worm burrows, then 10cm pr so size cross beds consistent with channels and surf zone, symmetrical ripples consistent with shore, near horrizontal laminations consistent with beach and swash, and finally meter plus scale cross beds consistent with aeolian dunes. There are also root casts and solution tunes from the Forrest ecosystems that proceed the dune environment in the transgressive sequence.
The large scale cross beds also indicate a south West predominant wind direction, I.e. the Freo Doctor sea breeze.
Marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 7, 9 and 11 all potentially exceeded modern sea level within the last half million years.
Tsunami deposits on the other hand would not deposit layers of well sorted sediments, but rather poorly sorted breccias which would include mixed shells, most broken, as well as other fragments. None of those layers represent anything like that.
I'm not denying the possibility of past tsunamis on the wa coast, but these rocks are absolutely not evidence for them.
Double major geology and teacher of earth and environmental science by the way.
Very good info. Full reply on its way in a couple of hours...
We have a lot of limestone here in Mandurah and on the beach you can see the remains of tree stumps that the limestone now fills as well as trunk roots winding their way down which is petrified. Fascinating to imagine s the bush/trees once occupied the area which is now just a beach.
I was looking at some dead trees and stumps in the marshland near the Leschenault Peninsula a few days ago. Would be great to see when they were growing.
Most interesting, thank you!!
thank you
Thank you for making this video , I was born Here in western Australia and ive lived here most of my life. Ive often studdied the geological rocks here in WA trying to understand the geographical past. If possible please examine the rocks of the Murchison shire as ive often found fossilsed evidence of a mega flood that i believe could have stretched from tom price to canarvon. I believe for a short period it may have been a inland sea. Is there anyway i can contact you as im fascinated by the west Australian geology.
Thank you Duncan. I don't know much about the geology of Murchison beyond what I can read in the text books. Checking online resources I think this area may well have been the location of a shallow sea in distant geological past some 300 million years ago so I would expect to see some marine limestones with fossils.
Great research. Well done.
thank you
A couple of observations puzzle me. In places the cross bedding looks of a scale that is not compatible with dune formation i.e. you would expect to see larger cross bedding if eolian. In addition the fact that the Tamala Limestone is roughly consistent in its lithology over such a large area and such a vast timescale 180 mya to 140 kya suggests that the process of formation was continuous, uniform and responded to cycles (i.e. rising and falling sea levels). Sure the limestone formation might have encountered a few tsunamis along the way (evidenced by the granite boulders sitting on the limestone), but these tsunamis were merely mosquito bites on the elephant.
I am just back from a trip to the UK and made the point of visiting a location, Formby Beach on Merseyside, where there are wind blown sand dunes that are also eroding in some areas. I was careful to find a location and have images and video of an eroded dune, and there in the sand are the same cross bedding features with the exact same scale as seen at Dalkeith in this video. Each visible cross bedding feature represents the face of the dune for a short time before the wind covered this layer with a few millimetres of new sand and creates a new layer. I do think the Tamala Limestone is a continuous feature, and the shell layers are very interesting.
@@WATsunami Thank you for your reply. Your observations on Formby Beach are interesting.
The Two Rocks were islands before the marina was built, Perth sits on the oldest tectonic plate on earth 4•5 billion and the sea level has risen and ebbed over that time creating the limestone coastal plain, which is really only fish poop💫🙏💞
New subscription earned.
Great content 🍻🍻🇦🇺
thank you
Really fascinating thanks and love the accent!
thank you
Very interesting but no need for the music
It was nice, now it’s that you said it, it could’ve been down a bit.
I like it
It's not so much that there is a backing track, it's more that there needs to be a greater ratio between the narration and the soundtrack - UA-cam is peppered with content with the same issue
- I wonder if @WATsunami will accommodate us for future episodes?
There's an oyster shell deposit near the Greenfield Street footbridge over the Canning River in Cannington. I'd assumed these had lived there when the sea level was higher.
Now I'm wondering if they were washed upstream by the tsunami.
Are they in the Tamala Limestone or in loose sand? Since I made this video I have done a bit more research and on balance these are more likely beach deposits from a time when sea levels were even higher than today.
@@WATsunami They're about 17km inland from the coast. There's no limestone that far east. They're 15m north of the river sitting in alluvium. I think the elevation is 4-5m ASL so it wouldn't take much to inundate this spot. Given the size & violence of the tsunami I don't suppose it would leave confined deposits of shells like these. I can't find fine scale data on sea levels that would confirm this spot was once underwater, just data showing stable sea levels over the last 6k years.
@@cristop5 I have done a bit more research on this since I put the video out, and now I'm leaning towards this being a shallow marine deposit from a time sea levels were even higher than present.
@@WATsunami Thanks. I hope you'll present your findings here. Today I found limestone in East Cannington, about 20km inland from the coast. This area is within the Bassendean Dune system which I understood to be free from limestone.
@@cristop5 Thanks. I will check it out when I get the chance.
Fascinating research. I did watch another video recently that shows evidence of chevron shapes in the entire coastline indicating a mega tsunami.
Thank you. I have drone footage of many chevrons in my other videos, and I will be doing an in depth look at an individual chevron in a couple of episodes time, including some 3d mapping.
it's foolish to do a google earth 'study' of this part of the WA coast and disregard the effect of the howling sea breezes that prevail from south to north. Any of these so called tsunami chevrons are just as likely to be wind blown dune formations. I'm pretty sure I saw the same sensationalist claims about 'chevrons' in the video and I laughed at the claims made for the origin of natural dunes in coastal locations I have spent my life exploring.
@@noelwhittle7922 Hello Noel, I'm just back from a trip to the UK where I have been making further studies of wind blow sand dunes. I will be compiling this information in to a future episode. There are three points worth noting about the WA sand dunes that should be considered. 1, the orientation of the WA chevrons bear no relationship to the prevailing winds. 2, wind blown sand dunes are not found on the tops of cliffs, unlike the chevron dunes in the south west of WA which are. 3, wind blown sand dunes do not contain sea shell fragments, unlike the chevron dunes in the south west of WA which do contain shell fragments. Could you please elaborate on the sand dunes areas you have explored?
@@WATsunami "..natural dunes (which are ) in coastal locations I have spent my life exploring ( or working)" . But for background, as a surfer and windsurfer, & remote area worker, I have walked in, driven through, or flown over in light planes & helicopters, every coastal location from Cape Leeuwin to Exmouth Cape.
And, to be clear, it was the other video I was referring to, in reply to the post by Tony. And, I have no doubt that a number of tsunamis have occurred.
However, the whole of the coastal plain from Dunsborough to Geraldton carry clear evidence of the higher sea levels in the past, ( search for LIDAR images of Dunsborough - Vasse for ancient dune lines in the bush at Carbanup ) so it makes sense that any stranded dune systems will most likely be the dune system from the old sea shore lines or old coastal estuary shore lines, therefore any shell evidence is not necessarily an out-of-place artifact. You need to be careful with your claim that the chevrons bear no relationship to prevailing winds, in that they have been there thousands of years and the area between Bunbury and Jurien Bay is subject to incredibly strong winds during winter from the North West through to the South West and that wind still has full strength 20km inland from the coast. In Australia, wind blown dunes are wherever there is sand, minimal vegetation, and strong winds.
@@WATsunami did you delete my response?
As a Perth native this interesting. I note those contesting your theory in the comments.
Most of it has been good discussion. A few times if has pointed out areas I have got wrong and I have to hold my hand up and acknowledge. I am looking to form the best theory regarding the evidence I am gathering so its always welcome.
My friend is a local down here, that split rock happened close to 30 years ago
Hello Travis, are there any before and after pictures?
His friend took a picture one week before the split for memory, I can ask, it may be a long shot, but 200 metres from there, lays a pink crystal belt running through the granite on and off between tens of miles and branches off as though veins from an artery
@@traviswalker6176 Thanks. I have not yet been to this spot, so I am relying on the paper referenced in the video. I am hoping to get here and do a 3D model of this particular rock. I am curious to see the edge of the break, and make a guess at how recent it looks to me. I think it should be possible to get an estimate of the rate of granite woolsack weathering at this location. I will keep you posted.
Great Doco.
Thank you
Live near these areas near the beach so it's interesting
thank you
Maybe more a Tamala limestone is more accurately defined as a calc arenite?
I have heard several terms to describe the Tamala Limestone, and the fact it has both wind blown and water lain deposits means it does not easily fit in to other more standard categories for either limestone or sandstone.
Look at the Burkle Crater event. It’s been attributed to the Indian Ocean tsunamis from deep sea soils and organisms, found on land in WA, India and Madagascar. Worth a read.
Hello J. I have looked at a lot of the information regarding the Burkle Crater during the research for this series. Simply, there is no evidence for it. Plus, we are not looking at a single event here, but multiple repeated tsunamis which are mostly likely generated on the continental slope. Have you watched Episode 5 in this series?
Good video, Would you not expect some changes in the Morophology such as fragmentation if the bivalves were transported via a high energy tsunami.
Possibly yes. I am now leaning towards these shell layers being shallow beach deposits. I'm still curious as to the when though, as this would have to mean the global sea level was higher when this was happening. Which then questions the aeolianite nature of the cross banded sand deposits. More research needed.
@@WATsunamisea levels in the Perth region have gone to about 7-10m above current sea level in the past
Hello Tyrone. Sorry about the delay. Yes with more research and evidence. I would expect more fragmentation of bivalve shells. Right now I am thinking this is most likely to be a shallow marine beach deposit during higher eustatic sea levels. I will be getting shell samples carbon dated in coming months.
Cape Arid national park in Esperance would be of interest
Esperance is on the to do list.
I just checked and yay! my house insurance covers Tsunami
You'll be OK say 20 meters above sea level, until the next ice age and interglacial which seems to kick off the mega high continental slope avalanche events.
@@WATsunami I'm in Rockingham ☹
@@bb001aYou have a bit of extra shelter from the islands... but do check the policy wording carefully.
That's only because your insurance company doesn't expect you to survive a tsunami. Don't trust insurance companies! Only joking 🙂.
Was the ocean level not once up to the escarpment ?
Possibly at times, but during the aeolianite deposition it was generally lower than today.
City Beach is the closest beach to the CBD it's in the name
Yess maate great work love it
cheers mate. more to come soon.
BS...yet you love it
@@johnharrison2511 what is BS? Because there was deffinatly a large wave
@@johnharrison2511 make whatever little arguement you think is relevant but its not like any of this is controversial
Same as the Tafelberg Sand stone we find in in South Africa and the layers of magma..... the gray bands I saw might be Kimberlight..... the same we found diamonds in.
Definitely no diamonds here.
thumbs up mate👍👍👍
Thanks 👍
The younger dryas period event maybe?
No I don't think it is related. The formation of Tamala Limestone eolianite is due of the cycle of glacial and interglacial periods spanning the last one or two million years. When the sea level drops the sand is blown in and the deposits form.
Sea level was so low during the younger dryas that you could walk to Rottnest. The Noongar people have stories and song lines about hunting grounds and waterholes that are now the sea floor between Perth and Rotto, believe it or not!
@@jacksoncarr5206 Yes Rottnest was still part of the mainland up to around 6000 or so years ago. The Tamala Limestone would accumulate during ages when the sea level was much lower, but that was in a previous epoch and long before human habitation in Australia.
I live in Perth in the northern suburbs. You only have to go 30 kilometers inland to Bullsbrook and surrounding suburbs and you can find seashells lying on the ground. Surely this is also evidence of tsunami at some point in time.
Hello Rogue, this is the exact sort of evidence I am looking for. Do you have any locations you can point me to? Sea shell fragments in an undisturbed sand layer will be our Holy Grail.
@@WATsunami There's a walk up at Coomallo Conservation Park where there is shells. Its about 30km from the ocean
@@timmac482 I have not been to that location. Are the shells in the rock or in a sand layer above the rock? Are they bivalve type?
There are basically no geologists in WA who support your tsunami idea, and one thing Perth has an abundance of is highly qualified and expert geologists.
The swan coastal plain sand dune deposits and limestone are the products of in situ weathering and alluvial and fluvial deposits.
I have read several documents discussing the mix of aeolian sand dunes and marine sediments in Tamala Limestone, but none which discussed how contradictory these different layers are. Wind blown sand dunes can only contain fine particles, and sea shells cannot be blown by the wind. As far as I am aware this is the first time the tsunami theory has been proposed. Do you have any sources you can cite refuting this idea?
Gondwana. The separating of the Australian section from the India plate. Curtin uni has a published, peer reviewed paper on the techtonic activity as it relates to this part of Australia. No mention of Tsunami in the paper. I believe the limestone deposits are evidence that the area was once under the sea.
@@Colin56ish It's called Tamala Limestone, but the type of deposit is called an eolianite, which are land based lithified coastal sand dunes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolianite
The question here is, how did layers of marine sediments get interspaced with land deposits? I agree, so far, no one else has mentioned possible tsunami events.
I have followed the Carolina Bays, US story closely. A. Zamora has proven beyond a reasonable doubt they are secondary impact craters on unconsolidated ground yet many geologists hang on to the idea of aeolian/lacustrine formation. The bays show zero evidence of a/l formation and much evidence of impact structure.
A video has already been done explaining all of this.....
Oz geographic......Burkle Crater impact indian ocean
That is not the origin of WA tsunamis, continental shelf landslides during ice are sea level changes are the cause. The Burkle Crater has all just about been debunked.
There has been many Tsunami from cataclysmic origins throughout the 4.5mill years of this rock, the evidence is everywhere and certainly not down to one certain thing.....there are many theories out there, good luck in your search
The two rocks use to be one rock but in the war they used to use it at target practice and that’s why it’s now two rocks and that also explains why there is a reef that runs out between the the 2 rocks
Do you have any sources you could point me to for this?
Probably the waves that sunk lemuria.
There are caves under the Blackwall reach cliff... we went far inside as kids.
This type of rock does readily form caves. I've not been to that location yet but it is on the to do list.
It's not sandstone no matter how much you want it to be, all the research has already been done
We know the processes of the creation of the swan coastal plain very well
Yes I should have used the term eolianite during the video. I simply forgot to include the term during my talk to camera.
It’s a calcarenite not a limestone
Calcarenite is a type of limestone
👍!!!🤍🤍🤍🤍
Is this video from @OzGeologyOfficial related? ua-cam.com/video/ewZEg6WwA2s/v-deo.html
I did see that video but I am trying to follow actual evidence that can be verified which is why I give things location co-ordinates of the evidence I study. And, there is zero evidence for the Burkle Crater, and increasing evidence for multiple Indian Ocean continental slope tsunami events probably linked to ice age and interglacial sea level changes.
no hills to run to in Perth
Apart from the actual Perth Hills / Darling Scarp
@@carlpayne8791These internet experts are doing my head in trying to be experts but without a clue and not even from here.
Typically they will get local rego plates on their car and start telling the locals all about the place, then start trying to change our lifestyle and culture to fit their own agenda.
Another tsunami must surely be due by now...
Not of immigration, but an actual wave.
Well.. there is but i dont think you should get to use em now..
Yes, there are...
It's called the "Great Dividing Range." I'll admit that it is a bit of a hike, but if you can get there, you might be safe. 😅
This was well documented by mob and others in the Pilbara.
You are wrong they do not say this is how it happened.
The rock art is a 9000 year timeline.
Stop making stuff up dude.
Lost me at "we acknowledge"
More evidence of The Great Flood
Love the video 😊 but my friend you are near but not close😅 .
But much respect...
Step 3 meters from the rock to the water 😅 you will figure it out.
Same same but different
I turned off at the indigenous acknowledgment.
Its called "limestone" because its made from lime. Pretty basic.
Its not made of "sand".
People from other countries do love to come here and tell us all about the place we are from, and tell us how to live and stories about the things we clearly grew up around.
We don't need all these foreigners coming here, telling us their BS.
Its a bit like more colonialism, after too much already.
In their foreign accents they think we must be from Mars and are just visiting.
Limestone can form wherever there is lime, and at one time water.
This video in my opinion is just BS.
Correct there are basically no geologists in WA who support this tsunami idea, and one thing Perth has an abundance of is highly qualified and expert geologists.
I work building limestone (not natural) retaining walls in yanchep and two rocks alot and deal with digging in to the rock we call the hard top layer cap rock and then theres normally softer shelly pockets underneath and also see what looks like old coral too you should have a look in new developments around there for some holes with the layers exposed or in the old limestone quarries in the area. Great vid always wondering bout the rocks
Thank you. I actually have a couple of quarry visits planned on my to do list to investigate this type of thing some more. Do you have any current or near future projects that I might be able to come and take samples at? I can be free at a days notice to visit any location within a couple of hours of the CBD. If we can find widespread shell layers, this rules out the river theory of the shell layers, and makes the tsunami theory more likely.
@@WATsunamitake a look at the wave cut platform at cottesloe, just south of the stairs down at cottesloe reef. The potholes on that platform have fossil corral that has grown in situ, covering eroded root casts, you'llfind several examples if it's not buried in weed. That could only occur if sea level was several meters higher than present and warmer than now. 100% not transported, you can see the coral encrusting the eroded surface, what would constitute a diaconformity were it buried.
There is in fact a disconformity visible right at the bottom of those stairs, with broken shell layers atop layered sand. Consistent with a transgressive sequence on an eroded aeolian deposit.
@@jacksoncarr5206 I have been to that location many times, but I was not looking for coral as such. I will have a very close look in the next few weeks.