Please bring a small ruler with you or be prepared to take a small sample of sand home with you.
McLoughlins Point is the official beginning of Ninety Mile Beach and where we have brought you today. We think it’s pretty cool to stand at the beginning of something so long, the actual start will fluctuate depending on tide and sand movements, as close to the edge as possible is preferable.
Access to the area would be best using the footbridge at McLaughlin’s beach. You will need to walk several kilometres to reach the start but we assure you it will be a peaceful and scenic walk, well worth the effort.
Ninety Mile Beach is a 94 mile or 151km long stretch of pristine untamed beach that separates the Gippsland Lakes (the largest inland water system in the Southern Hemisphere) from Bass Strait, running north-eastward from the spit near McLoughlins beach and finishes at the Lakes Entrance channel entrance.
Stretching as far as the eye can see it is one of the most natural and unspoilt beaches in the world. It is also the third longest uninterrupted beach in the world. Parts of Ninety Mile Beach is covered by Marine National Park (2750 ha) which protects an internationally significant sandy environment, recognised for its exceptionally high diversity of marine invertebrates. Low calcarenite reefs, scattered throughout the park, support a unique invertebrate biota, including colourful sponge gardens. The long sandy beach provides extensive habitat for shorebirds, including international migratory waders and the threatened Hooded Plover. Indigenous tradition indicates that the park is part of the Country of the Gunai/Kurnai1 Indigenous people. It is a place integral to the Dreaming of the Gunai/Kurnai people, and is highly significant to Traditional Owners
Ninety Mile beach is an ancient, diverse and fragile environment consisting of recent Holocene (<10 000 years ago) sand deposits and sparse isolated Tertiary (1–65 million years ago) offshore calcarenite reef outcrops. Ninety Mile Beach is an intertidal beach and is of geomorphological interest due to its massive unbroken beach and barrier dune system. Interestingly enough due to this unusual length waves break too close to the beach for good surfing.
The barrier dune system is a single high sand ridge which is slowly migrating inwards over earlier lagoonal sediments. Behind the dune the remains of the lagoonal system is represented by a wide, flat, low-lying coastal plain. Offshore, Holocene sand and shell deposits dominate, with isolated Tertiary calcarenite reefs outcropping between 10 m and 20 m depth in the east. The reefs are remnants of old dune systems, formed during earlier periods of lower sea levels. More extensive reef areas occur to the north-east and south-west. The reef outcrops are low, often rising less than one metre from the seabed. Mobile sand beds frequently scour and cover these reefs.
Erosion of the barrier dune system along Ninety Mile Beach by wave action is occurring. Land subsidence due to oil, gas and groundwater extraction has been considered as a factor contributing to the erosion. However, erosion was active prior to extraction commencing in the 1960s and may be due to a natural depletion of sand from offshore reservoirs
Native vegetation has been largely removed from the dunes and replaced with Marram Grass. Marram Grass was planted throughout Victoria to stabilise dunes and has contributed to the formation of a high, single-ridge dune along Ninety Mile Beach which is more susceptible to wind and wave erosion.
The sand here at Ninety mile beach is quartzose sand. In terms of particle size as used by geologists, sand particles range in diameter from 0.0625 mm (or 1⁄16 mm) to 2 mm. An individual particle in this range size is termed a sand grain. Sand grains are between gravel (with particles ranging from 2 mm up to 64 mm) and silt (particles smaller than 0.0625 mm down to 0.004 mm).
To successfully log this Earth Cache we require you to consider the information given, visit GZ, then message us with the following answers to the best of your ability;
1. At the published coordinates describe where the water meets the sand, is it deep of shallow, what does this indicate?
2. When standing on the beach use the Sand card provided to determine what size the sand is here?
3. Calculate the volume of sand in one cubic centimetre here and then one cubic meter.
The best method to tackle this task is to line up sand grains on a 1cm section of a ruler, count them, then cube them then convert the result to cubic meters.
** Bonus points and bragging rights (we will put your name up on the honour roll (cache page)) to any team who come up with an estimation on the total sand volume along the entire ninety mile beach (hint the beach is said to be 25meters deep).
4. A photo of your team or GPS nearby. (Optional)
You are welcome to log your answers straight away to keep your TB's and Stats in order but please message us with your answers within 1 week. Cachers who do not fulfil the Earth Cache requirement will have their logs deleted.
Source: Wikipedia, parkweb.vic.gov.au, www.engtech.ca
