Quaternary History of the Coorong Coastal Plain, Southern Australia ― An Archive of Environmental and Global Sea-level Changes

This book provides an up-to-date overview of the Quaternary geological and geomorphological evolution of the Coorong Coastal Plain region and its significance in a global context for understanding long-term records of Quaternary sea-level changes.
The Coorong Coastal Plain in southern Australia is a natural laboratory for examining the response of coastal barrier landscapes to relative sea-level changes. The region provides direct evidence of coastal sedimentation during successive interglacials over the past 1 million years, as well as more recent volcanism. The region has received international focus and attracted scientists from around the World, with interests in long-term coastal evolution, sea-level changes, Quaternary dating methods and geochronology, soil development, temperate carbonate sedimentation, karst geomorphology and geologically recent volcanism.

Professor Colin V. Murray-Wallace has actively undertaken Quaternary research since the completion of his PhD in 1987. He has received numerous research grants from the Australian Research Council and other funding bodies. He served for eight years as the Head of the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong (2003-2007 and 2009-2013). Colin was Secretary of the Australasian Quaternary Association from 1989 to 1997 and Co-ordinator of the Quaternary Environments Research Centre, University of Wollongong, from 1998 to 2000 (now GeoQuEST Research Centre). Colin was President of the Commission on Coastal and Marine Processes (2003-2007) of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), Secretary General of the XVII INQUA Congress (Cairns, 2007), and Project Leader of the UNESCO and IUGS-funded IGCP Project 437, Coastal Environmental Change During Sea-Level Highstands (1999-2003) in which he collaboratively edited five special issues of international journals as part of the project. He is on the editorial advisory boards of Quaternary Research and Quaternary Geochronology, and in 2008 became Editor-in-Chief of Quaternary Science Reviews published by Elsevier, following a period of 5 years as a member of the journal’s Editorial Team. He also served as Assistant Editor of Archaeology in Oceania (1988-1990). He currently directs the operations of the only amino acid racemization dating laboratory in Australia. Colin has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature on amino acid racemization dating, Quaternary sea-level changes, neotectonics and coastal evolution. In 2014 he published a 484 page book with Colin Woodroffe entitled ‘Quaternary Sea-Level Changes: A Global Perspective’ through Cambridge University Press and has a forthcoming book currently in press (2016) ‘Coastal Landscapes of South Australia’ through Adelaide University Press. His DSc degree in geology was awarded by the University of Adelaide in 2010 for his research contributions to Quaternary Science.
Colin was awarded the A.H. Voisey Medal by the Geological Society of Australia in 1995 for contributions to the study of the geology of New South Wales and the Mawson Medal by the Australian Academy of Science in 2016 for contributions to the geology of Australia. Whilst maintaining a vigorous research program, Colin has also been very active in undergraduate teaching and the supervision of postgraduate research students, many of whom, have gone on to assume influential positions in industry and academia.