THE SHIFTING SANDS OF SOMERTON BEACH, PART 3. THEN & NOW...

THEN & NOW....

The purpose of the following post and images is to give everyone another perspective of the location of the discovery of the Somerton Man. Importantly, using the Google Earth Pro tools we also get dimensions and elevations that we haven't had previously.

The familiar image above shows the scene where the body of the Somerton Man was found. The larger building to the upper right is the then Crippled Children's Home which was situated on the junction of The Esplanade and Bickford Terrace.

The next images are from Google Earth, they show the same location but from a different angle as you will see:

The red line is the approximate location of the steps as they were in December 1948. Notes appear in this next image:

Other dimensions obtained from the Google Earth tools are the elevation of the beach floor at the shoreline level of the red line which is 3.35 meters and the elevation of the pathway which is 7.9 meters.

The height of the rock sea wall is therefore 4.55 meters approximately. (New image to follow this weekend)

The 4.55 meter height as of today compares with the estimated height of between 3.35 meters and 4 metres in 1948.

Bear in mind that these are the measurements as of this date, the sands all along the shoreline have shifted significantly over the years between 1948 and 2021. This would naturally impact the relative dimensions.

I apologise for the angled red line it should have dropped at 90 degrees to the pathway! That will make a difference to the distance measurement. I will be adding another, corrected, image this coming weekend.

A footnote....

Amongst the leads being followed in the hunt for more precise dimensions related to the scene as at 1948 is researching the Glenelg Council historical records to see whether or no, following the 1948 Storm event, there was a need to replace/repair the existing concrete steps at the location. There is a slim chance that we may come across documents including tender documents that provide a specification for the steps that appear in the first image at the top of this post.