Wave Rock ( nys, Katter Kich) is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking

ocean wave In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, water wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result from the wind blowing over the water surface. The contact distance in the direction o ...

. The "wave" is about high and around long. It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as "Hyden Rock". This hill, which is a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

inselberg An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

, lies about east of the small town of Hyden and east-southeast of

Perth, Western Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. Twidale, C. R. (1968) ''Origin of Wave Rock, Hyden.'' Transactions of the Royal Academy of South Australia. vol. 92, pp. 115–124. Wave Rock and Hyden Rock are part of a nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park. More than 100,000 tourists visit every year.

Dam

A wall lies above Wave Rock about halfway up Hyden Rock and follows the contours of the rock surface. It collects and funnels rainwater to a storage dam. The wall and dam were constructed in December 1928 by the

Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...

for the colonist settlers of East Karlgarin District. Both were renovated in 1951 to increase water capacity for the Hyden township. Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.

Dreamtime

Wave Rock has cultural significance to

Ballardong Ballardong are an indigenous Noongar people of the South West, Western Australia, south western area of Western Australia. Country The Ballardong's land encompasses an estimated . Northwards they occupy the Avon River (Western Australia), Avon R ...

people. Local tribes believed that wave rock was a creation of the

Rainbow Serpent The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many different Aboriginal peoples. It is a common motif in the art and religion ...

, and was created in her wake by dragging her swollen body over the land after she had consumed all of the water in the land. They respected this area as an icon of cultural learning; a moral from this

Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology, Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Ja ...

tale was to be remembered for life. The rock is part of a dreaming trail that extends from the south coast near Augusta to the

Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cross th ...

country to the north east. Other features along the trail include

Mulka's Cave The Humps is a granite rock formation known as a "stepped bornhardt inselberg". It is located within The Humps Nature Reserve approximately east of Perth and north east of Hyden, Western Australia, Hyden in the eastern Wheatbelt (Western Au ...

Puntapin Rock Puntapin Rock is a granite rock formation located approximately south east of Wagin, Western Australia, Wagin and approximately west of Dumbleyung, Western Australia, Dumbleyung in the western Wheatbelt (Western Australia), Wheatbelt region ...

Jilakin Rock Jilakin Rock is a granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that sl ...

, Jitarning Rock and

Dumbleyung Lake Dumbleyung Lake, also widely known as Lake Dumbleyung, is a salt lake (geography), salt lake in the Great Southern (Western Australia), Great Southern region of Western Australia. The lake has a length of and a width of ; it covers a total area ...

Geomorphology

Hyden Rock, of which Wave Rock is part, consists of 2.63 billion year-old

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more alumino ...

K-feldspar Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar (endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture," because its two cleavage planes are at right angles t ...

porphyritic Porphyritic is an adjective used in geology to describe igneous rocks with a distinct difference in the size of mineral crystals, with the larger crystals known as phenocrysts. Both extrusive and intrusive rocks can be porphyritic, meaning all ...

monzogranite Monzogranites are biotite granite rocks that are considered to be the final fractionation product of magma. Monzogranites are characteristically felsic (SiO2 > 73%, and FeO + MgO + TiO2 < 2.4), weakly

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 ...

.Qiu, Y., and N. J. McNaughton (1999) ''Source of Pb in orogenic lode-gold mineralisation: Pb isotope constraints from deep crustal rocks from the southwestern Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Australia.'' Mineralium Deposita. 34:366–381. Hyden Rock is a

, which consists of three domes. The central and western domes are separated by a deep valley, which is now occupied by a reservoir. The central and eastern domes are linked by a low platform. A multistage process of landform development created these domes. The initial step in the development of Hyden Rock was the subsurface alteration by weathering of granite bedrock beneath a lateritised land surface during the

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 th ...

Period between 100 and 130 million years ago. Depending on the degree to which it was fractured by jointing, the granite bedrock underlying this surface was altered to varying depths beneath the land surface. This process formed underground "domes" of solid granite bedrock surrounded by deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated granite. Following separation of Australia and Antarctica and accompanying tilting of what became southwestern Australia, periodic erosion of the deeply weathered granite, which underlaid the surrounding land surface, exposed these buried solid bedrock domes over time as Hyden Rock.Twidale, C. R., J. A. Bourne, and J. R. Vidal Romani (2002
''Multistage Landform Development in Various Settings and at Various Scales.''
Cadernos do Laboratório Xeolóxico de Laxe. 27:55–76.Twidale, C. R., and J. R. V. Romani (2005) ''Landforms and Geology of Granite Terrains.'' Taylor & Francis, New York, 359 pp. A198, Hyden, Western Australia, Wave Rock, 2007

A198, Hyden, Western Australia, Wave Rock, 2007

Wave Rock is a spectacular example of what geomorphologists call a "

flared slope 250px, Picture of the Wave Rock, a landmark flared slope in Western Australia.">Western_Australia.html" ;"title="Wave Rock, a landmark flared slope in Western Australia">Wave Rock, a landmark flared slope in Western Australia. A flared slope is ...

". A flared slope is a concave-upward or -inward bedrock surface that is typically found around the base of inselbergs,

bornhardt A bornhardt () is a dome-shaped, steep-sided, bald rock outcropping at least in height and several hundred metres in width. They are named after Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946), a German geologist and explorer of German East Africa, who first ...

s, and granitic boulders and also on their higher slopes. Flared slopes like Wave Rock are particularly well developed in granitic landforms of south-western and southern Australia. The flared slopes are argued to have formed by the concentrated chemical weathering around the base of an inselberg by groundwater. The chemical weathering of the bedrock by groundwater produces a concave-upward or –inward pocket of deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated bedrock within the formerly solid bedrock base of an inselberg. When the land surface, which is underlain by deeply weathered bedrock, around an inselberg is lowered by erosion, the pocket of deeply weathered disaggregated bedrock is also removed to produce a flared slope such as Wave Rock. It has also been argued that flared slopes can form during the erosion of slopes of any inselbergs.

Nearby features

Other notable rock formations in the area include

Hippos Yawn Hippo's Yawn is a rock near Wave Rock in Western Australia. The rock's resemblance to a yawning hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus ...

and

The Humps The Humps is a granite rock formation known as a "stepped bornhardt inselberg". It is located within The Humps Nature Reserve approximately east of Perth and north east of Hyden in the eastern wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Risin ...

In popular culture

Wave Rock hosts the nearby Wave Rock Weekender event, a music festival that has been held annually since 2006.

References

External links

*
Granite Outcrops in the Wheatbelt
– on the website of th
Central Wheatbelt Visitor Centre
– includes Wave Rock *{{Commons category-inline Rock formations of Western Australia Wheatbelt (Western Australia) Places of Noongar significance Neoarchean magmatism Western Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate