Parangtritis Beach

Tuesday, 15th november 2011

Today, we are going to visit Geospatial Laboratory in Parangtritis Beach, about 20 km away in the southern part of Yogyakarta. Our journey started at 8.25 from University Hotel.

9.32 – 10.00 – Geospatial Laboratory

We drove to the south of jokjakarta towards the shore to drive to the Geospatial Laboratory.

Here stand a big blue building with studying the coastal area and monitoring the circumstance in Indonesia twice every day. Downstairs there where all kind of equipment for mapping, and there stands all kind of coral from the sea. After the tour inside we went to have a snack. In the canteen were stands a variation of traditional Indonesian food. Like Pisang goreng, sweet potato and tofu with a green chili and other thing. Perry toke the challenge and eat a whole green chili. It was really spicy for him he got all tears in his eyes.

After this funny happening there were made some group pictures.

When these were taken we went to the beach to have some fun. Some of us ride on a horse and others drove on the ATV or swim in the sea.

When the time was over we went back to the bus and have a lunch.

10.15 -11.15 – Parangtritis Sand Dune

After we had visited Geospasial Laboratory. We went to Parangtritis Beach. It is not far away from Geospasial Laboratory. We had just 5 minutes to arrive there. Parangtritis Beach is famous beach because there are aboundant sand dunes which is barchan tipe. It is the ony one sand dunes that we can see in the Southeast Asia.

Long the street we can see so many sand dunes. It is kind of aeolin and marin landform that likes a hill that all materials is sand.The materials are from Merapi eruption that is taken along by the Progo and Opak River into the sea. Because there is long shore current, the materials come out the sea. It becomes deposition material. It flies over by wind becomes sand dunes. On the other hand, because there is cliff. It makes possible to barrier the material not to go far away. So the materials stand along there.

Sand dune in parangtritis has some forms. Tongue dune has small size with long, tongue shape that can be found in some part of the coast. Typical sand dune has medium size, located in the middle part of the coast. The last, large barchan dune with U shape located in the back, far from the coast line.

It is very unique because it can grow in the tropis climate. We know that in the tropis climate is humid and wet. Sand dunes looks like desert where grows in the dry climate. But it is different, eventhough it is same materials. There are important factors that make different. The factors are sand, long shore current, wind, and cliff.

11.15 - 12.30 – Parangtritis Beach

Parangtritis Beach is sandy beach, in which the material comes from the Merapi Volcano. Due the tectonic process comes from two major faults in east and west side, the land between them decreased and formed a graben, resulted in wide, flat topography around Parangtritis Beach. In the east side, the fault line became a beautiful cliff consists of limestone material, resulted in very wonderful view in east part of the beach. Coconut trees, big waves and strong wind that come from the sea give additional value to the amazing scenery in Parangtritis.

By : Andung, Perry, Reny, Tao