AustroPalaeo
All that glitters: the fossils of Lightning Ridge
Digging for opalised fossils at Lightning Ridge offers a chance to be involved in real science and get a taste for the toils of an opal miner.
Tag: geology
Destinations
Hidden Nullarbor
Dissolved below the world’s largest limestone karst landscape are the enigmatic caves of the Nullarbor Plain, the longest and most beautiful of which still puzzle geologists.
Destinations
VIDEO: The Glass House Mountains
Jutting out of an otherwise flat landscape, the Glass House Mountains are a standout feature right in Brisbane’s backyard.
Wildlife
Young at heart
Most of us know about Australia’s ancient geology – but many of her landscapes are very fresh and new.
Science & Environment
Nullarbor Caves: Australia’s hidden world
The Nullarbor Plain, the world’s largest limestone karst landscape, is tens of millions of years old. The Nullarbor – a dry, flat, 200,000sq.km savannah – stretches 1100km along the southern coast of Australia from Balladonia east of Norseman, WA, to north of Yalata in SA. Above ground it is famously featureless. Edward John Eyre, the first European to cross the Nullarbor in 1840–1841, described it as the “sort of place one gets into in bad dreams”. But beneath the surface is a complex world of tunnels within a vast slab of limestone. Much of southern Australia is also riddled with smaller blocks of limestone. Find the full story in the Jan/Feb issue (#130) of Australian Geographic.
Destinations
Warrumbungles: a climber’s paradise
Born from ancient volcanic activity, the distinctively rugged Warrumbungles landscape calls climbers who revel in the challenge of raw, unpredictable lines.
Science & Environment
Mapping giant earthquake potential
New research narrows down where giant earthquakes are likely to hit
News
World’s oldest mineral found in Australia
A zircon mineral from WA is the oldest known matter in the world, confirming that Earth is 4.4b years old, scientists say.
News
Oldest signs of life probed in the Pilbara
Evidence of what might be the oldest bacteria on Earth could help us find life on other planets, experts say.
AG Blog
Earthquake caused glacier to crumble
The power of the NZ earthquake has had distant effects, including the carving of a glacier.