Chris Sharples is a geologist (B.Sc. Hons. 1979) who long ago abandoned the mugs game of coal and oil shale exploration to work as a contractor on building stone research and then geomorphological issues in land management. He has specialised in coastal geomorphology since 1998 and has been a Research Associate at the University of Tasmania since 2007. In 2020 he graduated as a PhD. His project investigated the identification of sea-level rise signals in coastal erosion and recession processes.