Murchison River Gorge is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

ine

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

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 ...

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 ...

. Carved by the meandering lower reaches of the Murchison River, it is more than long, and up to deep. It begins about north-northwest of Ajana, and extends to the mouth of the river at Kalbarri. A site of outstanding natural beauty, it is a major tourist attraction, with points of interest including the

Z Bend The Z Bend lookout is a popular tourist lookout on the Murchison River Gorge in Western Australia. It is located at ,Gazetteer of Australia (1996). Belconnen, ACT: Australian Surveying and Land Information Group. about east of Kalbarri, in th ...

lookout and The Loop walking trail. The gorge is also of interest to geologists, with exposures of

Tumblagooda sandstone The Tumblagooda Sandstone is a geological formation deposited during the Silurian or Ordovician periods, between four and five hundred million years ago, and is now exposed on the west coast of Australia in river and coastal gorges near the tour ...

, an Ordovician redbed formation that contains fossils of eurypterids, representing some of the earlier fossil evidence of land animals. Fossilised eurypterid tracks are common in the vicinity of the gorge, as are tracks of other

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s, possibly

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...

s. The gorge is considered to be in excellent condition and lies almost entirely within the

Kalbarri National Park Kalbarri National Park is located north of Perth, in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The major geographical features of the park include the Murchison River gorge which runs for nearly on the lower reaches of the Murchison River. Sp ...

. It was nominated in 1991 as a geological monument for the

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

References

{{coord, -27.58717, 114.45547, format=dms, display=title Canyons and gorges of Western Australia Geology of Western Australia Heritage places of Western Australia Kalbarri, Western Australia