Assoc/Prof. Kat Fitsimmons Honours Projects

The history of Sea Country in SW Victoria 

Supervisor: Kat Fitzsimmons
Study site: Discovery Bay Coastal Park
Field of study: physical geography, geomorphology, sedimentology, GIS and remote sensing
Support offered: Field and lab costs covered by supervisor; fieldwork as part of research group trip
Collaborating organisation: Gunditjmirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Environmental Histories and Futures
Preferred program: Field work, sediment sampling and analysis, GIS, portable luminescence dating, palaeoecology

Far southwestern Victoria provides us with one of the most pristine environments on the mainland for reconstructing past climatic and landscape change along the coast. This project will join a team of researchers from Australian universities and the Gunditjmara people to investigate indicators for past ecological and coastal change over the last millennia with the aim of generating an integrated
history of Country.

Victoria’s deserts: when and how did dunes take over western Victoria? (3 projects)

Supervisor: Kat Fitzsimmons
Study site: Little Desert NP, Big Desert/Wyperfeld NP
Field of study: physical geography, geomorphology, sedimentology, GIS and remote sensing
Support offered: Field and lab costs covered by supervisor; fieldwork as part of research group trip.
Collaborating organisation: Barengi Gadjin Land Council
Preferred program: Field work, sediment sampling and analysis, GIS and remote sensing, portable luminescence dating, palaeoecology (pollen, charcoal…)

Did you know that much of western Victoria is a fossil desert?! And not a particularly old one at that – we think these dunes marched across the landscape during the last glacial, possibly even more recently than that! How can we work out what sorts of vegetation grew across the Wimmera region before colonization, given that almost everywhere is now farmed?

These projects will examine what the Wimmera landscape looked like in the past, in collaboration with Barengi Gadjin Land Council, as well as Wimmera Catchment Management Authority and Landcare.

What can dry lakes tell us about past river flow and past climate? (2-3 projects)

Supervisor: Kat Fitzsimmons
Study site: Noongar Boodja (southwest Western Australia)
Field of study: physical geography, geomorphology, sedimentology, GIS and remote sensing
Support offered: Field and lab costs covered by supervisor; fieldwork as part of research group trip
Collaborating organisation: Waugyl Kaip Southern Noongar Aboriginal Corporation, Nowanup
Preferred program: Field work, sediment sampling and analysis, GIS, portable luminescence dating

Southwest WA is a semi-arid place covered with ancient lakes and river courses! Yet we know next to nothing scientifically about how and when these water-based landforms were active, and indeed where they flowed. These projects will investigate palaeochannels, lakes, dunes and shorelines on Noongar Boodja to try to reconstruct what the landscape used to look like, and what it can tell us about past climate change.

How dusty was lutruwita/Trouwerner (TAS)?

Supervisor: Kat Fitzsimmons
Study site: northwest Tasmania
Field of study: physical geography, sedimentology, GIS and remote sensing
Support offered: Field and lab costs covered by supervisor; fieldwork as part of research group trip
Collaborating organisation: University of Tasmania
Preferred program: Field work, sediment sampling and analysis, GIS, portable luminescence dating

Tasmania was one of the few places on this continent which experienced glaciation during the Quaternary. But did those glaciers produce dust, and did it accumulate as loess on the island? This project will search for evidence of loess deposits across the northwestern part of lutruwita/Trouwerner.

Dust in the lakes: when and how did dust come and go across southern Victoria in the past? (1 project)

Supervisor: Kat Fitzsimmons
Study site: Tower Lake, Lake Surprise
Field of study: physical geography, sedimentology, GIS and remote sensing
Support offered: Lab costs covered by supervisor
Collaborating organisation: Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation
Preferred program: Sediment analysis, GIS, wind trajectory modelling

During the last glacial, Victoria got dusty: the climate was more windy, there was less vegetation and lots of exposed continental shelf in the Bass Strait to provide sand and silt which blew up as dust. Some of that dust ended up in the volcanic lakes of southern Victoria. But how much dust was there? Where was it coming from? This project will investigate the sediments accumulated within these lakes to take a look at how much dust there was, when it peaked, and where it was likely coming from.

Have a chat to me about other projects and ideas which excite you, or which you would
like to explore!

Contact Kat Fitzsimmons