Potential Geoheritage Values of Landscapes in the Australian Drylands A report to the Commonwealth Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities 2nd Edition, March 2016 (replaces 1st Edition, June 2011) Gresley A. Wakelin-King, Susan Q. White Wakelin Associates Pty. Ltd Wakelin Associates Pty Ltd. ABN 11 002 971 262 PO Box 271, Clifton Hill Victoria, Australia 3068. Ph 03 9482 4584 www.wakelinassociates.com.au ii DISCLAIMER Information contained in this report is correct as far as possible within the scope of the project and at the time of writing. It can be used to inform management practice or project design criteria, but is not intended for specific engineering design. This report may be cited as: Wakelin-King, G.A. and White, S. 2016. Potential geoheritage values of landscapes in the Australian drylands (2nd Edn). A report by Wakelin Associates to the Australian Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Canberra. Cover picture: A waterhole in the Neales River, Lake Eyre Basin. Photo: Gresley Wakelin-King, 2010. Figure Credits: unless otherwise noted, photos are by Gresley Wakelin-King and images are by Wakelin Associates. © Wakelin Associates 2015 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Wakelin Associates: Geoheritage in Australian Drylands (2nd edn; 2016) iii Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 7 1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Boundary of the Study Area .......................................................................... 11 1.2 National Heritage List: Criteria and Thresholds ............................................ 13 1.3 Assessment Methodology ............................................................................. 17 2 Drivers of Australia’s Drylands Landscapes .................................................... 23 3 Themes and Sites .......................................................................................... 27 3.1 Astroblemes .................................................................................................. 28 3.2 Sand Deserts .................................................................................................. 34 3.3 Karst ............................................................................................................... 48 3.4 Arid Coasts ..................................................................................................... 56 3.5 Tectonics ........................................................................................................ 65 3.6 Uplands .......................................................................................................... 77 3.7 Regolith .......................................................................................................... 91 3.8 Watercourses ............................................................................................... 110 4 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 149 5 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 152 Acknowledgements We would like to thank Pauline English, Cameron Grant, Paul Hesse, Ron Hacker, John Magee, Gerald Nanson, and Lisa Worrall for generously making available their time, experience, and photographs. We would also like to acknowledge the work of the Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration, whose long-term research focus on regolith geology has provided much new information, particularly for remote and difficult areas. This second edition (2016) of our report has benefited greatly from the reviews of the papers (White and Wakelin-King 2014, Wakelin-King and White 2015) we published subsequent to the release of this report’s 1st edition (2011); we thank the reviewers for their care and suggestions. Wakelin Associates: Geoheritage in Australian Drylands (2nd edn; 2016) iv Figures Fig. 1 Sites, areas, or indicative areas with potential to pass NHL criteria ................................................................... 9 Fig. 2 The study area (grey) ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Fig. 3 The study area and its IBRA bioregions ............................................................................................................ 13 Fig. 4 Topography of the Acraman Impact Structure and Gawler Ranges region ...................................................... 32 Fig. 5 The compound dune to the south of Embarka Swamp .................................................................................... 35 Fig. 6 Floodouts amongst the northwestern Simpson Desert dunefield .................................................................... 39 Fig. 7 Topography of the northwestern Strzelecki Plain ............................................................................................ 43 Fig. 8 the Sandlands Province (after Pain et al. 2011) ................................................................................................ 45 Fig. 9 Speleologists at work on the Nullarbor Plain. Photo: Nicholas White. ............................................................. 49 Fig. 10 The Nullarbor Plain ......................................................................................................................................... 51 Fig. 11 Rugged topography at Cape Range. Photo: Dragi Markovic ........................................................................... 54 Fig. 12 The Zuytdorp Cliffs. Left, digital elevation model; right, photo: Nick Rains ................................................... 58 Fig. 13 The long scarp along the southern boundary of the Nullarbor Plain .............................................................. 60 Fig. 14 The Bunda Cliffs. Photo: G Richardson. .......................................................................................................... 61 Fig. 15 Australian earthquakes, located, records to 2011 .......................................................................................... 65 Fig. 16 Incised fans in the Flinders Ranges. Photo: John Baker .................................................................................. 67 Fig. 17 The Cooper Creek and Neales River Catchments, in the Lake Eyre Basin ....................................................... 70 Fig. 18 Table-top hills in the Innamincka Dome ......................................................................................................... 71 Fig. 19 Gibber plain uplands (bare) and the Neales River (trees) ............................................................................... 75 Fig. 20 Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Photo: Esther Beaton. Credit: Director of National Parks ............................................ 79 Fig. 21 Bevelled upper surface of a quartzite ridge in the MacDonnell Ranges. Photo: Michael Jenson ................... 84 Fig. 22 Part of the Rodinga Ranges ............................................................................................................................ 85 Fig. 23 Oblique view of the Rodinga Ranges area ...................................................................................................... 87 Fig. 24 Vertic soils and the the MGD bioregion.......................................................................................................... 94 Fig. 25 Dark ferruginous duricrust and soft pale saprolite in the Painted Desert, SA ................................................ 97 Fig. 26 Lateritic weathering profile exposed in a mine pit, Eastern Goldfields region ............................................. 100 Fig. 27 Silcrete in the Neales Catchment. Photo: Chris Bell ..................................................................................... 104 Fig. 28 Flat bedding in the channel of a sand-bed river (Trephina Gorge) ............................................................... 113 Fig. 29 A lower-order channel in Fowlers Creek ;1 m scale (arrowed) ..................................................................... 115 Fig. 30 Cooper Creek’s anabranching channels ........................................................................................................ 119 Fig. 31 The Cooper’s wide floodplain between Windorah and Nappa Merrie Waterhole ....................................... 121 Fig. 32 Algebuckina Waterhole, in the Neales River ................................................................................................ 127 Fig. 33 Witjira-Dalhousie Springs ............................................................................................................................. 129 Fig. 34 Banded vegetation ....................................................................................................................................... 131 Fig. 35 Sandover River channel (right) and floodout (centre). Photo: Stephen Tooth ............................................. 134 Fig. 36 Chains of playa lakes in the Yilgarn palaeodrainages ..................................................................................