Palmerston () is a suburb in the

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

district of

Gungahlin Gungahlin () is a Lands administrative divisions of Australia#Australian Capital Territory, district in the Australian Capital Territory, one of the fastest growing regions in Australia. The district is subdivided into suburbs, sections and blo ...

. The postcode is 2913. The suburb is named after George Thomas Palmer (1784–1854) who established a settlement in the Canberra region in 1826 called Palmerville, which was later renamed Ginninderra. It was gazetted on 20 March 1991. Streets are named after mountains and mountain ranges of Australia, with the main street called Kosciuszko Avenue. It is next to the suburbs of Nicholls,

, Crace and

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People and characters * Franklin (given name), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (surname), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (class), a member of a historic ...

. It was the second suburb to be developed in the Gungahlin district, after the

industrial suburb An industrial suburb is a community, near a large city, with an industrial economy. These communities may be established as tax havens or as places where zoning promotes industry, or they may be industrial towns that become suburbs by urban ...

of Mitchell. It is bounded by Gungahlin drive and Gundaroo drive.

Urban environment

Palmerston is mainly a

residential area A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family residen ...

with a mix of single homes and duplexes. At the centre of the suburb there are small medical, shopping and community centres. Palmerston Primary School opened in 1994 and a large neighbourhood oval is adjacent to the school. A number of cyclepaths cross the suburb, with pedestrian and cycle underpasses at several road crossings. Fruit trees, including plums and apples are scattered along the public thoroughfares of Palmerston.

ACTION Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

bus routes 21 and 22 traverse Kosciuszko Avenue, as well as 23 and the 24 bus routes going through half of Palmerston, connecting Palmerston with Gungahlin Town Centre, Franklin and Nicholls.

Geology

Palmerston is underlaid by the Canberra Formation from the late middle

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

age. The area was studied in more detail than many other parts of Canberra by J P Ceplecha from the ANU in 1971. Mostly the Canberra Formation is slaty

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

and

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from ''shale'' by its lack of fissility.Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.'' New York, New York, ...

. A layer of

ashstone Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

has been folded to form 75 metre wide exposures on the surface. These are in the shape of an ear of corn with the major axis pointing north north east. The major axis is determined by an

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of Fold (geology), fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest Bed (geology), beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex curve, c ...

. A

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimposed ...

determines the western side of the ashstone, with an anticline further to the west. A triangle of

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

has been lifted up by faults into the western corner of Palmerston. A long fault aligned with the folds follows along the east side of

Ginninderra Creek Ginninderra Creek, a partly perennial stream of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the Capital Country region spanning both the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales, Australia. ''Ginninde ...

. The Winslade Fault comes in from the south heads north and joins up with the above long fault. The Gungahlin fault also parallels the folds and cuts through the east side of Palmerston. It forms the eastern limit of the ashstone.Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.

Footnotes

Suburbs of Canberra {{Canberra-geo-stub