Gulf of Carpentaria Division

Abstract

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a 300,000 km² U-shaped semi-enclosed shallow sea exposed to a tropical monsoonal climate and occasional tropical cyclones and feed by a series of seasonal rivers around its perimeter. The coast is part of the McArthur and larger Carpentaria basins and generally low-lying with low gradient nearshore, especially along the southern coast. Tides are meso, and waves are fetch-limited and generally low, but increase in height to the west where they maintain moderate energy wave-dominated and tide-modified beaches. Mangroves and wide tidal flats dominate the sheltered southern coast, while barriers range from long regressive beach-foredune ridges along the western Cape York Peninsula coast to some large transgressive dune systems on the trade wind exposed Groote Eylandt and eastern Arnhem Land coast. This chapter describes the geology, climate and coastal processes around the gulf coast.