The Petermann Ranges are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

in central Australia. They run across the border between

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 ...

and the southwest corner of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. Their highest point is

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. The range was formed about 550 million years ago during the

Petermann Orogeny The Petermann Orogeny was an Australian intracontinental event that affected basement rocks of the northern Musgrave Province and Ediacaran ( Proterozoic) sediments of the (now) southern Amadeus Basin between ~550-535 Ma. The remains are seen to ...

. The existing geological research has broadly determined that the ''Petermann Ranges'' were equivalent in height to the Himalayas. The Petermanns were named for the geographer

August Heinrich Petermann Augustus Heinrich Petermann (18 April 182225 September 1878) was a German cartographer. Early years Petermann was born in Bleicherode, Germany. When he was 14 years old he started grammar school in the nearby town of Nordhausen. His mother wa ...

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 Bris ...

, the first European explorer to visit the area, and are commonly associated with the Yurliya ranges, nearby to the west. The area was included in the Katiti-Petermann Indigenous Protected Area in 2012.

In popular culture

There are few geology-oriented documentaries that trace

Uluru Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially Gazette#Gazette as a verb, gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone geological formation, formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the ...

and

Kata Tjuta Kata Tjuṯa / The Olgas (Pitjantjatjara: , lit. 'many heads'; ) is a group of large, domed rock formations or bornhardts located about southwest of Alice Springs, in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. Uluṟu / Aye ...

's origins with the Australian Petermann Ranges. ''The Time Traveller's Guide To Australia'' (2012) produced by the ABC TV and Essential Media explores the geological origins of the continent.

References

Mountain ranges of Western Australia Mountain ranges of the Northern Territory {{WesternAustralia-geo-stub

In popular culture

See also

References