Gungahlin is a suburb in the
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
district with the same name;
Gungahlin. The postcode is 2912. Gungahlin is the name for the entire district, and also the town centre, but it is also the name of the suburb which
Gungahlin Town Centre is in.
It is next to the suburbs of Ngunnawal, Palmerston, Franklin, Harrison, Throsby, Forde and Amaroo. Burgmann Anglican School is located in the suburb. The edges of the suburb are on Horse Park Drive, Gundaroo Drive and Gungahlin Drive.
Gungahlin Town Centre
The commercial heart of the Gungahlin Town Centre is Hibberson St, the centre's main street, though the boundary of commercial activities in Anthony Rolfe Avenue, Gundaroo Drive and Gozzard Street. There are currently four retail anchor stores in the town centre, namely Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and Big W which are located in separate developments in Hibberson Street. There are two licensed clubs in the Town Centre: the Raiders Club located at the intersection of Hibberson and Gozzard Streets; and Eastlake Gungahlin Club located at the intersection of Hinder and Efkarpidis Streets. The Gungahlin Public Library officially opened in June 2011, and adjoining senior high school opened later that year. Burgmann College is located in the suburb of Gungahlin.
Gungahlin Town Centre is one endpoint of stage 1 of Canberra's Light Rail network. Stage 1 runs from Gungahlin Town Centre to
Civic.
Demographics
At the , the population of Gungahlin was 8,586, an increase from 5,617 in 2011 and 3,857 in 2006, including 153 (1.8%) Indigenous persons and 4,157 (48.4%) Australian-born persons. The next most common countries of birth were China (8.7%), India (7.5%), Nepal (4.9%), South Korea (3.0%) and Vietnam (1.9%). 48.5% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin (9.8%), Nepali (4.7%), Korean (3.2%) and Vietnamese (2.2%). The most common responses for religion were No Religion (39.5%) and Catholic (14.4%). 35.5% of dwellings were separate houses, 17.4% were semi-detached, row or terrace houses or townhouses and 46.5% of were flats or apartments.
Geology
The Gungahlin suburb is underlain by the middle
Silurian
The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...
age Canberra Formation. Most of this is slaty
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, especial ...
and
mudstone
Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...
. But there are also a couple of bands of
ashstone in the south and north west. The structure of the rock has been
folded by
anticlines and a
syncline
In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimpose ...
with a north east direction. The Gungahlin
Fault is parallel to the folds and passes through the east of the town center. To the south it passes through
Crace,
Kaleen,
Bruce and
Aranda where it stops at the Deakin Fault. The Gungahlin Fault is also parallel to the Winslade Fault and is no doubt connected with it. In the north east direction it
passes out of the ACT northern end and ends near the Sullivans Fault.
[Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.]
Footnotes
{{Gungahlin Suburbs
Suburbs of Canberra