Gosses Bluff (or Gosse's Bluff) is thought to be the eroded remnant of an

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...

. Known as Tnorala to the Western Arrernte people of the surrounding region, it is located in the southern

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

, near the centre of Australia, about west of

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' A ...

and about to the northeast of

Uluru Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, southwest of Alice Spring ...

(Ayers Rock). It was named by

Ernest Giles William Ernest Powell Giles (20 July 1835 – 13 November 1897), best known as Ernest Giles, was an Australian explorer who led five major expeditions to parts of South Australia and Western Australia. Early life Ernest Giles was born in Bri ...

in 1872 after Australian explorer

William Gosse William Gosse may refer to: *William Gosse (explorer) William Christie Gosse (11 December 1842–12 August 1881), was an Australian explorer, who was born in Hoddesdon,"Gosse, William Christie (1842–1881)". ''Australian Dictionary of Biogr ...

's brother Henry, who was a member of William's expedition.

Formation

The original crater is thought to have been formed by the impact of an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

approximately 142.5 ± 0.8 million years ago, in the earliest

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 ...

, very close to the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

boundary. The original crater rim has been estimated at about in diameter, but this has been eroded away. The diameter, high crater-like feature, now exposed, is interpreted as the eroded relic of the crater's central uplift. The impact origin of this topographic feature was first proposed in the 1960s, the strongest evidence coming from the abundance of

shatter cone Shatter cones are rare geological features that are only known to form in the bedrock beneath meteorite impact craters or underground nuclear explosions. They are evidence that the rock has been subjected to a shock with pressures in the rang ...

s. In the past the crater has been the target of petroleum exploration, and two abandoned exploration wells lie near its centre.

Cultural significance

The site is known as Tnorala to the

Aboriginal people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the Western Arrernte language group, and is a sacred place. It is now located in the Tnorala Conservation Reserve. A Western Arrernte story attributes its origins to a cosmic impact: in the

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 beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Gillen, quickly adopted by his co ...

, a group of celestial women were dancing as stars in the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

. One of the women grew tired and placed her baby in a wooden basket, or turna (also known as a coolamon). As the women continued dancing, the basket fell and plunged into the earth. The baby fell to the earth and forced the rocks upward, forming the circular mountain range. The baby's parents, the evening and

morning star Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to: Astronomy * Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise ** See also Venus in culture * Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...

, continue to search for their baby to this day. The turna can be seen in the sky as the constellation

Corona Australis Corona Australis is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its Latin name means "southern crown", and it is the southern counterpart of Corona Borealis, the northern crown. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-cent ...

References

External links

Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) Conservation Reserve

Nice photo of Gosse Bluff ©Yann Arthus-Bertrand 'Earth from above with Fujifilm and UNESCO'
{{Impact cratering on Earth Impact craters of the Northern Territory Cretaceous impact craters Early Cretaceous Australia