About Beaumaris, VIC

Beaumaris ( bo-MAR-is) is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 20 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Bayside local government area. Beaumaris recorded a population of 13,947 at the 2021 census.Beaumaris is located on Port Phillip Bay and is bounded by Reserve Road and Weatherall Road in the north, Charman Road in the east, the Port Phillip Bay foreshore in the south, and McGregor Avenue, Fifth Street, Keating Street, Iluka Street, Fairleigh Avenue and Royal Melbourne Golf Club in the west. == Geology == The blunt V-shaped intrusion of land into the Bay that is spearheaded by Table Rock Point is referred to as the Beaumaris 'Peninsula'. The Beaumaris cliffs to the north east of Table Rock are formed by the steeply folded rock layers known as the Beaumaris Monocline, which is considered to be of Tertiary age overlying older structures. These include the underlying Silurian rock known as the Fyansford formation above which is the 15 m thick darker Beaumaris Sandstone, overlain by yellowish Red Bluff Sandstone, as outcrops in the cliffs, ferruginised, with hard ironstone in the upper sections, extending to the platform, and as small reefs parallel to the coastline. A thin calcareous sandstone is overlain by fine sandy marl and sandstone with calcareous concretions. At the base of the sandstone is a thin gravelly bed that includes concretionary nodules of phosphate and iron of which detached nodules may be found around the cliff base.The Monocline can be seen where the cliffs of Beaumaris are locally parallel to the turnover of the monocline, which forms a drainage divide between the Gardners Creek-Dandenong Creeks systems and the Carrum Swamp. Layers in the cliff are almost horizontal, but fold downward almost 30º toward the vertical south-easterly and out to sea. Jagged remains of the strata can be seen off-shore at low tide from the cliff-top walk at the end of Wells Road.Behind Keefer's Fishermens Wharf the lower level of the cliffs is a fossil site of international significance. Shells, sea urchins, crabs, foraminifera, remains of whales, sharks, rays and dolphins, and also birds and marsupials, dating back to the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene (12 to 6 million years ago) can be found, and have been the subject of a number of papers.