Lake Wooleen is a DIWA-listed intermittent

freshwater lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

system located in the

Mid West The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. The lake is situated on

Wooleen Station Wooleen Station is a pastoral lease that was previously operated as a sheep station and currently runs cattle. The station was established in 1886 in the Murchison region of Western Australia that is bisected by the Murchison River. The st ...

, approximately north of Yalgoo and west of Cue.

Description

The lake is situated on the

Yilgarn Craton The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton that constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts. Zircon grains in the Jack Hills, Narryer Terrane have be ...

, lying on

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

and lacrustine valley-fill deposits in the

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the Roderick River. The surrounding country gently undulates among isolated hills and rocky outcrops. Wooleen is a flood plain lake made up of two claypans joined by a neck including associated marches. The lake receives water approximately once every four years, fills once every ten years, and

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

s once every thirty years. It results from its position on a fault line and when it overflows it discharges into the Murchison River, but when the Murchison is in flood it can flow into the lake. Filling is usually the result of rain events of a

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

origin that occur in autumn and summer; water depth may reach as high as several metres when full and can take as long as ten months to dry out again. The water quality is fresh when full but becomes increasingly brackish as the lake dries out. The vegetation in the lakebed and claypans is mostly shrubland with

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

such as

samphire Samphire is a name given to a number of succulent salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) that tend to be associated with water bodies. *Rock samphire, ''Crithmum maritimum'' is a coastal species with white flowers that grows in Ireland, the Unit ...

and

lignum Lignum is Latin for wood and may refer to: * '' Gmelina lignum-vitreum'', plant endemic to New Caledonia * Lignum, common name of ''Muehlenbeckia florulenta'', plant native to inland Australia * Lignum Crucis, remnants of the True Cross * Lignum Lt ...

dominating, and low open woodland of

Eucalyptus camaldulensis ''Eucalyptus camaldulensis'', commonly known as the river red gum, is a tree that is endemic to Australia. It has smooth white or cream-coloured bark, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven or nine, white flowers an ...

in the margins. The surrounding vegetation is taller open shrubland.

References

{{reflist Wooleen, Lake DIWA-listed wetlands

Description

See also

References