TALK / The Impact of Historic Reef Research and Modelling at Low Isles

Join Dr Sarah Hamylton as she shares how her team are building on historic research to understand biological and geological changes at Low Isles and its surrounding reef.

The world’s first scientific expedition to a coral reef went to Low Isles, where the work engaged with themes that resonate with today's coastal enthusiasts: underwater adventure, gender equality, climate change and a scientific legacy that lives on.

The 1928-29 Great Barrier Reef Expedition marks an important milestone in the evolution of modern coral reef science, from its nineteenth century theoretical and deductive foundation - to the twentieth century focus on empirical and analytical studies. We begin by considering the expedition, its involvement of women and local Indigenous community members, its immediate scientific achievements and its longer-term legacy. This truly interdisciplinary expedition was housed at Low Isles for 13 months. Investigations involved meticulous microscopic work and painstaking laboratory and field observation, measurement and experimentation, cataloguing linkages between reef habitats, tidal processes and physical and chemical properties of water, as well as the first ever detailed quantitative inventory of life on the reef. We outline the Expedition’s major achievements, many of which continue to be relevant in modern reef science, not least in providing an exceptional set of ecological and geomorphological benchmarks against which a century of ecological and morphological change has been assessed. We conclude by outlining our work monitoring changes to the sand cay, shingle ramparts and mangrove forest on the reef flat at Low Isles by bringing together old maps, aerial drones and coring sediments.

Who

Dr Sarah Hamylton (Associate Professor) and Brooke Conroy (PhD candidate)

School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences

University of Wollongong (UOW) NSW 2522

When

Sunday June 11, 2023

6pm – 7pm

45 minute presentation will be followed by a Q & A

Admission

Free but please register your intention to attend at link below.

Where

Port Douglas Community Hall

Mowbray St, Port Douglas

Presented by

Low Isles Preservation Society