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Stuart Range, South Australia
The Stuart Range is a low upland in central South Australia, extending about with a north-west to south-east alignment and passing within to the south-east of Coober Pedy. Name The range is named after John McDouall Stuart, the first European explorer to pass through the area, in 1858. Formation During the Late Cretaceous and Tertiary, central Australia experienced crustal compression resulting in very broad, low-amplitude folding, and the Stuart Range formed on a basement upwarp. Underlying the Stuart Range, the folded sediments include the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) Bulldog Shale, consisting of grey marine mudstones. Where the Bulldog Shale has been exposed at the surface for long periods it has been subjected to deep chemical weathering, resulting in bleaching and the "multi-hued, picturesque colouration" found in the Arckaringa-Stuart Range landscape. The prolonged chemical weathering also dissolved silica which, transported through the regolith by the movement o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy () is a town in northern South Australia, north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. Coober Pedy is renowned for its below-ground dwellings, called " dugouts", which are built in this fashion due to the scorching daytime heat. The name "Coober Pedy" is thought to derive from the Aboriginal term ''kupa-piti'', which means "whitefellas' hole", but in 1975 the local Aboriginal people of the town adopted the name Umoona, which means "long life" and is also their name for the mulga tree. In the 2016 Australian census, there were 1,762 people in Coober Pedy. History Aboriginal peoples have a long-standing connection with the area. Coober Pedy is considered by the senior Western Desert people to be the traditional lands of the Arabana people country, but Kokatha and Yankunytjatjara people are also closely attached to some ceremonial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and second smallest state by population. It has a total of 1.8 million people. Its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 33,233. South Australia shares borders with all of the other mainland states, as well as the Northern Territory; it is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight.M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John McDouall Stuart
John McDouall Stuart (7 September 18155 June 1866), often referred to as simply "McDouall Stuart", was a Scottish explorer and one of the most accomplished of all Australia's inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return, through the centre of the continent. His experience and the care he showed for his team ensured he never lost a man, despite the harshness of the country he encountered. The explorations of Stuart eventually resulted in the 1863 annexation of a huge area of country to the Government of South Australia. This area became known as the Northern Territory. In 1911 the Commonwealth of Australia assumed responsibility for that area. In 1871–72 the Australian Overland Telegraph Line was constructed along Stuart's route. The principal road from Port Augusta to Darwin was also established essentially on his route and was in 1942 named the Stuart Highway in his honour, following a rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic. The name is derived from the Latin ''creta'', "chalk", which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation ''Kreide''. The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now- extinct marine reptiles, ammonites, and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world was ice free, and forests extended to the poles. During this time, new groups of mammals and birds appeared. During the Early Cretaceous, flowering plants appeared and began to rapidly diversify, becoming the dominant group of plants across the Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene Epoch. The time span covered by the Tertiary has no exact equivalent in the current geologic time system, but it is essentially the merged Paleogene and Neogene periods, which are informally called the Early Tertiary and the Late Tertiary, respectively. The Tertiary established the Antarctic as an icy island continent. Historical use of the term The term Tertiary was first used by Giovanni Arduino during the mid-18th century. He classified geologic time into primitive (or primary), secondary, and tertiary periods based on observations of geology in Northern Italy. Later a fourth period, the Quaternary, was applied. In the ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weathering
Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with water, atmospheric gases, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs ''in situ'' (on site, with little or no movement), and so is distinct from erosion, which involves the transport of rocks and minerals by agents such as water, ice, snow, wind, waves and gravity. Weathering processes are divided into ''physical'' and ''chemical weathering''. Physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks and soils through the mechanical effects of heat, water, ice, or other agents. Chemical weathering involves the chemical reaction of water, atmospheric gases, and biologically produced chemicals with rocks and soils. Water is the principal agent behind both physical and chemical weathering, though atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide and the activities of biological organisms are also important. Chemical weathering by biological action is also known as biologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestrial planets and moons. Etymology The term '' regolith'' combines two Greek words: (), 'blanket', and (), 'rock'. The American geologist George P. Merrill first defined the term in 1897, writing: Earth Earth's regolith includes the following subdivisions and components: * soil or pedolith * alluvium and other transported cover, including that transported by aeolian, glacial, marine, and gravity flow processes. * "saprolith'", generally divided into the ** ''upper saprolite'': completely oxidised bedrock ** ''lower saprolite'': chemically reduced partially weathered rocks ** ''saprock'': fractured bedrock with weathering restricted to fracture margins * volcanic ash and lava flows that are interbedded with unconsolidated materi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silcrete
Silcrete is an indurated (resists crumbling or powdering) soil duricrust formed when surface soil, sand, and gravel are cemented by dissolved silica. The formation of silcrete is similar to that of calcrete, formed by calcium carbonate, and ferricrete, formed by iron oxide. It is a hard and resistant material, and though different in origin and nature, appears similar to quartzite. As a duricrust, there is potential for preservation of root structures as trace fossils. Silcrete is common in the arid regions of Australia and Africa often forming the resistant cap rock on features such as the ''breakaways'' of the Stuart Range of South Australia. Silcrete can be found at a lesser extent throughout the world especially England (e.g. ''Hertfordshire puddingstone''), and France. In the Great Plains of the United States, polished silcrete cobbles are locally common on the surface and in river gravels east of the outcrops of the Ogallala Formation. In Australia, silcrete was widel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duricrust
Duricrust is a hard layer on or near the surface of soil. Duricrusts can range in thickness from a few millimeters or centimeters to several meters. It is a general term (not to be confused with duripan) for a zone of chemical precipitation and hardening formed at or near the surface of sedimentary bodies through pedogenic and (or) non-pedogenic processes. It is typically formed by the accumulation of soluble minerals deposited by mineral-bearing waters that move upward, downward, or laterally by capillary action, commonly assisted in arid settings by evaporation.Dixon, J.C. and McLaren, S.J., 2009. ''Duricrusts''. In A.J. Parsons and A.D. Abrahams, ed., pp. 123-151. ''Geomorphology of desert environments.'' Springer, Dordrecht. Woolnough, W.G., 1930. ''The influence of climate and topography in the formation and distribution of products of weathering.'' ''Geological Magazine'', 67(3), pp.123-132. There are different types of duricrusts, each distinguished by a dominant mineral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Pavement
A desert pavement, also called reg (in the western Sahara), serir (eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and cobble size. They typically top alluvial fans. Desert varnish collects on the exposed surface rocks over time. Geologists debate the mechanics of pavement formation and their age. Formation Several theories have been proposed for the formation of desert pavements. A common theory suggests that they form through the gradual removal of sand, dust and other fine-grained material by the wind and intermittent rain, leaving the larger fragments behind. The larger fragments are shaken into place through the forces of rain, running water, wind, gravity, creep, thermal expansion and contraction, wetting and drying, frost heaving, animal traffic, and the Earth's constant microseismic vibrations. The removal of small particles by wind does not contin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eucla Basin
The Eucla Basin is an artesian depression located in Western Australia and South Australia. The onshore-offshore depression covers approximately 1,141,000 km² and slopes southward to an open bay known as the Great Australian Bight. It extends more than 500 km offshore and about 350 km inland from the coastline. The Eucla Basin is a Cenozoic basin consisting mostly of carbonate sediments and sedimentary rocks. The basin contains a sandstone aquifer at its base (confined), and an unconfined limestone aquifer. The surface area of the basin (and Nullarbor Plain) consists mostly of grazing and rangeland, but nickel and gold are mined at the western end. Very few people live in this part of the country, with most of the region having fewer than one inhabitant per km². In normal years, the area receives less than 250 mm of precipitation. Due to a shortage of regional seals and source rocks, the basin has poor petroleum prospects, but it is forming as a major zirc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Eyre Basin
The Lake Eyre basin ( ) is a drainage basin that covers just under one-sixth of all Australia. It is the largest endorheic basin in Australia and amongst the largest in the world, covering about , including much of inland Queensland, large portions of South Australia and the Northern Territory, and a part of western New South Wales. The basin is also one of the largest, least-developed arid zone basins with a high degree of variability anywhere. It supports only about 60,000 people and has no major irrigation, diversions or flood-plain developments. Low density grazing that sustains a large amount of wildlife is the major land use, occupying 82% of the total land within the basin. The Lake Eyre basin of precipitation (rain water) to a great extent geographically overlaps the Great Artesian Basin underneath. The basin began as a sinking landmass mostly covered by forest and contained many more lakes than now. The climate has changed from wet to arid over the last 60 million years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
