The upper Hawkesbury River, New South Wales, Australia: a Holocene example of an estuarine bayhead delta

Holocene deposits of the Hawkesbury River estuary, located immediately north of Sydney on the New South Wales coast, record the complex interplay between sediment supply and relative sea‐level rise within a deeply incised bedrock‐confined valley system. The present day Hawkesbury River is interpreted as a wave‐dominated estuarine complex, divisible into two broad facies zones: (i) an outer marine‐dominated zone extending 6 km upstream from the estuary mouth that is characterized by a large, subtidal sandy flood‐tidal delta. Ocean wave energy is partially dissipated by this flood‐tidal delta, so that tidal level fluctuations are the predominant marine mechanism operating further landward; (ii) a river‐dominated zone that is 103 km long and characterized by a well developed progradational bayhead delta that includes distributary channels, levees, and overbank deposits. This reach of the Hawkesbury River undergoes minor tidal level fluctuations and low fluvial runoff during baseflow conditions, but experiences strong flood flows during major runoff events. Fluvial deposits of the Hawkesbury River occur upstream of this zone.

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