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Michael Eades Reserve
The bushland in Michael Eades Reserve and surrounds is rich in sensitive vegetation, unique to the upper Blue Mountains plateau, in New South Wales, Australia. Many of the significant plants in the area, such as Acacia ptychoclada and Grevillea acanthifolia, do not appear anywhere else in the world. Vegetation Hanging swamps are an interesting feature of the Reserve and are defined not only by the unique plant life - sedges, grasses and shrubs - but also by the underlying geology. Layers of sandstone, claystone and shale direct groundwater to exit points on the valley walls, which feed the swamps on a continuous basis. These hanging swamps are the source of water for creeks and waterfalls in the upper Blue Mountains. In this Reserve, Katoomba Creek flows downstream into the World Heritage Site of the Grose Valley. Hanging swamps are home to many threatened and endangered animals: Blue Mountains Water Skink, Giant Dragonfly, and the Giant Burrowing Frog. The natural system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bushland
In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving around it, with the stories of Aboriginal trackers and bushrangers deeply entrenched in Australian folklore. Bushland has been a traditional source of wood for fuel and bushfood. Bushland provides a number of ecosystem services including the protection of water quality, stopping erosion, acting as a windbreak, and trapping nutrients. Bushland is prone to bushfires. This presents a challenge to authorities as infrastructure and habitations encroach into bushland areas. Preservation Until recently Australia had a very high rate of land clearing, which resulted in the destruction of bushland. Since 2006 the rate of land clearing has declined significantly. This is partially attributed to legislation that placed a ban on broad scale cleari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite.Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy (1996) ''Petrology: Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic'', 2nd ed., Freeman, pp. 281–292 Shale is characterized by its tendency to split into thin layers ( laminae) less than one centimeter in thickness. This property is called '' fissility''. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock. The term ''shale'' is sometimes applied more broadly, as essentially a synonym for mudrock, rather than in the more narrow sense of clay-rich fissile mudrock. Texture Shale typically exhibits varying degrees of fissility. Because of the parallel orientation of clay mineral flakes in shale, it breaks into thin layers, often splintery and usually parallel to the otherwise indistinguishable beddin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Mountains City Council
The City of Blue Mountains is a local government area of New South Wales, Australia, governed by the Blue Mountains City Council. The city is located in the Blue Mountains range west of Sydney. The Mayor of Blue Mountains City Council is councillor Mark Greenhill, a member of the Labor Party. Towns and villages in the local government area The urban part of the city consists of a ribbon of close or contiguous towns which lie on the Main Western railway line, served by NSW TrainLink's Blue Mountains Line, and Great Western Highway between Emu Plains and Lithgow. About 70% of the city's area is within the Blue Mountains National Park which lies north and south of the ribbon of towns. The National Park is part of the much larger Greater Blue Mountains Area World Heritage Site and the city brands itself as "The City Within a World Heritage National Park". The towns and villages are generally grouped into lower, mid, and upper mountains. The economy of the upper mountains is d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darug People
The Dharug or Darug people, formerly known as the Broken Bay tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people, who share strong ties of kinship and, in pre-colonial times, lived as skilled hunters in family groups or clans, scattered throughout much of what is modern-day Sydney. The Dharug, originally a Western Sydney people, were bounded by the Kuringgai to the northeast around Broken Bay, the Darkinjung to the north, the Wiradjuri to the west on the eastern fringe of the Blue Mountains, the Gandangara to the southwest in the Southern Highlands, the Eora to the east and the Tharawal to the southeast in the Illawarra area. Darug language The Dharug language, now not commonly spoken, is generally considered one of two dialects, the other being the language spoken by the neighbouring Eora, constituting a single language. The word ''myall'', a pejorative word in Australian dialect denoting any Aboriginal person who kept up a traditional way of life, originally came from the Dharug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giant Burrowing Frog
The giant burrowing frog or eastern owl frog (''Heleioporus australiacus'') is a large frog species that occurs in coastal south-east New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. It is also known as the owl frog, southern owl frog, spotted owl frog, burrowing owl frog. Description This is a large species of frog, up to in length. It is normally grey, dark brown or black on the back. It is white on the belly. There are yellow spots on the side and a yellow stripe on the upper lip, from the back of the eye to the back of the tympanum. In metamorph frogs, this stripe is pink-orange in colour. The skin is rough and bumpy, males often have black spines on their fingers during the breeding season. This iris is silver and the pupil is vertical. This is quite a large species of frog and the largest frog in Victoria. It is often mistaken for the cane toad because of its large size and bumpy skin; however, cane toads do not have vertical irises, and the range of the cane toad currently do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petalura Gigantea
''Petalura gigantea'', the giant dragonfly or south-eastern petaltail, is one of the world's largest dragonflies, with the males having an abdomen 6-7.5 cm long and a wingspan up to 11 cm, while females have an abdomen 8-9.5 cm long and a wingspan up to 12.5 cm. The giant dragonfly occurs along the east coast of NSW from the Victorian border to northern NSW, and is not found west of the Great Dividing Range. There are known occurrences in the Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands, in the Clarence River catchment, and on a few coastal swamps from north of Grafton to Nadgee in the south. It is unusual not only in size, but also in having predominantly terrestrial habits at the larval stage. The giant dragonfly is listed as endangered under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act. This listing was transferred to the equivalent schedules under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW) from August 2017. ''Petalura gigantea'' is a species of dragonfly in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Mountains Water Skink
The Blue Mountains water skink or Blue Mountains swamp-skink (''Eulamprus leuraensis'') is a species of skink in the family Scincidae. An endangered species, it is found only in restricted parts of the mountains of southeastern Australia. Description The Blue Mountains water skink has a snout-to vent length of about and a tail length of about . The head is bronze to brown with black markings. The dorsal surface of the body is dark brown or blackish and on either side of the spine are rows of fine yellowish-bronze or white spots, giving the impression of continuous pale lines. These continue onto the dark-coloured tail as rows of spots. The flanks and limbs are dark brown or blackish with yellowish or bronze markings and the underparts are cream or yellow with small dark markings. The legs are robust and there are five toes on each foot. This species is unlikely to be confused with other species of '' Eulamprus'' because of its overall darker colour. Distribution and habitat Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grose Valley
The Grose Valley is a rugged valley in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. It has been formed by the Grose River, the headwaters of which are in the Mount Victoria area. The valley is located between the Great Western Highway and Bells Line of Road, the two major routes across the Blue Mountains. The majority of the valley falls within the Blue Mountains National Park. Grose wilderness features The Grose Wilderness contains some of the most dramatic gorge and canyon landscapes of the entire Sydney basin sandstone region. The Grose also constitutes one of the most accessible wilderness areas for bushwalking or public observation from its escarpment margins. Geology The geology of the area consists of Triassic sandstones and underlying Permian sedimentary rocks. A number of basalt-capped peaks dominate the area, notably Mount Banks and Mount Hay. The Grose River and its tributaries have eroded an extensive labyrinth of gorges and canyons through the Hawkesbury ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, scientific or other form of significance. The sites are judged to contain " cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity". To be selected, a World Heritage Site must be a somehow unique landmark which is geographically and historically identifiable and has special cultural or physical significance. For example, World Heritage Sites might be ancient ruins or historical structures, buildings, cities, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, monuments, mountains, or wilderness areas. A World Heritage Site may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humanity, and serve as evidence of our intellectual history on the planet, or it might be a place of great natural beauty. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katoomba, New South Wales
Katoomba is the chief town of the City of Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, and the administrative headquarters of Blue Mountains City Council. The council's understanding is that Katoomba is located on the lands of the Dharug and Gundungurra Aboriginal peoples. Katoomba is situated on the Great Western Highway west of Sydney and south-east of Lithgow. Katoomba railway station is on the Main Western line. Katoomba is a base for bush and nature walks in the surrounding Blue Mountains. At the 2016 census, Katoomba had a population of 7,964 people. Etymology Kedumba or Katta-toon-bah is an Aboriginal term for "shining falling water" or "water tumbling over hill" and takes its name from a waterfall that drops into the Jamison Valley below the Harrys Amphitheatre escarpment. Previously, the site was known as William's Chimney and Collett's Swamp. In 1874 the locality was named The Crushers after the name of the railway station that served a nearby quarry. The name K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterfall
A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several ways, but the most common method of formation is that a river courses over a top layer of resistant bedrock before falling on to softer rock, which Erosion, erodes faster, leading to an increasingly high fall. Waterfalls have been studied for their impact on species living in and around them. Humans have had a distinct relationship with waterfalls for years, travelling to see them, exploring and naming them. They can present formidable barriers to navigation along rivers. Waterfalls are religious sites in many cultures. Since the 18th century they have received increased attention as tourist destinations, sources of hydropower, andparticularly since the mid-20th centuryas subjects of research. Definition and terminology A waterfall is gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valley
A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over a very long period. Some valleys are formed through erosion by glacier, glacial ice. These glaciers may remain present in valleys in high mountains or polar areas. At lower latitudes and altitudes, these glaciation, glacially formed valleys may have been created or enlarged during ice ages but now are ice-free and occupied by streams or rivers. In desert areas, valleys may be entirely dry or carry a watercourse only rarely. In karst, areas of limestone bedrock, dry valleys may also result from drainage now taking place cave, underground rather than at the surface. Rift valleys arise principally from tectonics, earth movements, rather than erosion. Many different types of valleys are described by geographers, using terms th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
