{"id":332924,"date":"2025-10-26T03:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T03:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332924\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T03:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T03:11:17","slug":"ancient-tree-stumps-showing-sea-level-change-exposed-on-popular-esperance-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332924\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient tree stumps showing sea level change exposed on popular Esperance beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitch Bassett has been going to his favourite spot at Wharton Beach, an hour’s drive east of Esperance, since he was a child.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] extremely popular, it’s our favourite beach and I suspect that a lot of tourists are cottoning on to its beauty,” he said.<\/p>\n

But in all those years, he has never seen it like this.<\/p>\n

Where there was once white sand, almost 100 gnarled tree stumps have seemingly erupted from a dense layer of peaty mud.<\/p>\n

“The large swell has washed away most of the sand and exposed apparently some very old tree stumps,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The beach is not passable anymore \u2026 [I] never would have known that was under the sand.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Esperance local Mitch Bassett says he has never seen anything like the stumps at Wharton beach.\u00a0 (Supplied: Mitch Bassett)<\/p>\n

A rare and important site<\/p>\n

The collection of twisting stumps are remnants of an intertidal wetland which researchers have dated to be at least 7,000 years old.<\/p>\n

This makes them older than Egypt’s pyramids, Britain’s Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China.<\/p>\n

Ingrid Ward is a geo-archaeologist who has been researching the site since 2021, after the stumps were first discovered<\/a> by the Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation (ETNTAC).<\/p>\n

\"Stumps<\/p>\n

The newly exposed stumps are the remnants of an ancient freshwater wetland.\u00a0 (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n

She said the exposure of the stumps, and peat which holds them, was a ‘very exciting’ opportunity for research.<\/p>\n

“It’s a genuine, real, tangible vestige of a vast wetland which probably existed between the mainland and the outer islands,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s giving us a hint of when the sea level first reached this coastline when it was rising from a sea level low of 120 metres below [where it is now].<\/p>\n

“We have tens of thousands of years of record of change in 40 centimetres of core.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Until now, the stumps have been largely hidden by layers of sand and peat, which also worked to preserve them.<\/p>\n

\"Ingrid<\/p>\n

Dr Ingrid Ward is collecting core samples from the ancient wetland site. (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n

While the find is exciting, it is on a popular four-wheel drive accessible beach.<\/p>\n

Dr Ward said the risk of degradation has increased due to its exposure and there is evidence of people driving through the peat.<\/p>\n

“Leave this particularly special place alone, wait for it to be covered over,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We can’t replace it, and I don’t think that’s fair.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Car<\/p>\n

There are tracks through the peat near the ancient wetland site.\u00a0 (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n

Cultural significance<\/p>\n

Wudjari Nyungar Mirning Ngadju elder Ronald “Doc” Reynolds is the senior cultural adviser for ETNTAC and said the site was of “great importance”, both culturally and environmentally.<\/p>\n

“We know it would have been a freshwater source,” he said.<\/p>\n

“During analysis, we did see evidence of cultural material embedded into the area.<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty well preserved, and it’s highlighting evidence of Aboriginal occupation, way back in those days.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Wudjari Nyungar Mirning Ngadju elder Ronald “Doc” Reynolds has been monitoring the site for weeks.\u00a0 (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n

Dr Reynolds said the erosion of the dunes behind the exposed peat bog could reveal further archaeological and cultural material and ETNTAC rangers had been doing patrols along the eroded coastline to check.<\/p>\n

“We know that the dunal systems in history have been seen as burial sites for our people and hopefully [preserve] human remains of our ancestors that have been buried there over millennia,” he said.<\/p>\n

‘We can’t hold nature’<\/p>\n

Dr Reynolds said the south coast had moved into Kambarang, one of the six Nyungar seasons, and he hoped the changed conditions would help protect the area.<\/p>\n

“We’re currently into that season now \u2026 where the wind starts to move from the west and it’s moving around to the east,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’re hoping \u2026 it will just naturally cover itself by the tides and winds.”<\/p>\n

Should that fail, Dr Reynolds said ETNTAC was working with the shire to consider solutions to put a temporary cover over the stumps.<\/p>\n

\"Tree<\/p>\n

The tree stumps have been preserved by the dark peat. \u00a0 (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n

“We can’t hold nature, but we can try and minimise the effects and also protect what’s already there,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

“[We want] people to still come and enjoy our beautiful coastline, but respect the environment, and the cultural values embedded in that.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The exposed stumps are on a popular four-wheel drive accessible beach.\u00a0 (ABC Esperance: Andrew Williams)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitch Bassett has been going to his favourite spot at Wharton Beach, an hour’s drive east of Esperance,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":332925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[165076,165073,165074,746,165078,165072,165071,165075,159,165077,67,132,68,157824,165079],"class_list":{"0":"post-332924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ancient-forest","9":"tag-dr-ingrid-ward","10":"tag-dr-ronald-reynolds","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-environmental-research","13":"tag-erinance-tjaltjraak-native-title-aboriginal-corporation","14":"tag-peat","15":"tag-peat-bog","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-sea-level-change","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-wetland","22":"tag-wharton-beach"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115438281828607179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}