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Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson)

Sydney Harbour is a ria: a river valley carved into Hawkesbury sandstone, drowned by the sea as it rose after the last glacial period. Its branching coves, bays and headlands still trace the dendritic shape of the vanished river system beneath the water.

Dated events and their evidence

• 18,000 BCE mainstream
  Last Glacial Maximum: global sea level roughly 120-130m below present, leaving the future harbour a subaerial river valley cut into Hawkesbury sandstone source
• 8,500 BCE mainstream
  Holocene sea-level rise closes to within roughly 5m of present on the southeast Australian coast (Sloss et al. 2007 sea-level curve), flooding the valley toward today's harbour shape source

Where

33.8148° S, 151.2753° E

Sources

• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08120099.2022.2117243
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0959683607082415
• https://ozgeology.com/blogs/news/how-sand-from-antarctica-made-it-to-sydney

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