Burrup Peninsula air quality testing complete

After several months scanning air quality on the Burrup Peninsula, three borrowed LiDAR machines have been packed up and returned to their owners – Department of Water and Environmental Regulation and the universities of Melbourne and Newcastle.

The Light Detection and Ranging machines are one of many methodologies used by the Murujuga Rock Rt Monitoring Program to understand Murujuga’s atmosphere and determine whether natural weathering of marni (rock art engravings) is being accelerated by human-caused emissions.

The machines, which detect aerosols and dust by emitting a laser pulse and recording any light scattered by particles, have captured multiple Terabytes of data that will now require extensive analysis by the rock art monitoring program’s statistics team.

While LiDAR machines detect particles in the atmosphere over several kilometres, the program is also continuously monitoring air quality at ground level on Murujuga, via equipment on 21 air quality monitoring stations on the peninsula and islands.

All research and findings from the program is reviewed by a panel of independent national and international expert peer reviewers.

While analysis of the LiDAR data is unlikely to be published this year, the program is expected to release another report, that is based on analysis of air quality monitoring data and thousands of spectral, electrochemical and elemental measurements taken on rock surfaces, microbial sampling and geochemical analysis, in the first half of 2025.

Photos: Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation