Eucla National Park
Eucla National Park is a national park in Western Australia, 1,238 kilometres east of Perth. The southern edge of the park borders a section of the Great Australian Bight. Other notable features of the park include Wilson Delisser sandhills; the area is composed of typical of the southern coast. Wildflowers such as Cockie's Tongue, with its distinctive red, pink or yellow flowers are common throughout the park. A rare plant species of senecio, native to the limestone cliff area is known to exist in the park. Access to the area is via the Eyre Highway found on the northern border of the park. No facilities are available for visitors in the park and no sealed roads exist within the park, only 4WD tracks. No camping is permitted within the park, the nearest camping facilities are at Eucla and the Border Village. Historical ruins such as the Eucla Telegraph station and the original Eucla township can be found at the western end of the park. Both are buried by encroaching sand dunes. Protected areas of Western Australia
Cape Arid National Park
Cape Arid National Park is an Australian national park located in Western Australia, 731 kilometres southeast of Perth. The park is situated 120 kilometres east of Esperance and lies on shore from the eastern end of the Recherche Archipelago; the bay at its eastern side is Israelite Bay, a locality mentioned in Bureau of Meteorology weather reports as a geographical marker. The western end is known as Duke of Orleans Bay, its coastline is defined by Cape Arid, a bay called Sandy Bight and, further east, Cape Pasley. The first European to discover the area was the French Admiral Bruni D'Entrecasteaux in 1792 and he named it Cap Aride. Pioneer graziers arrived in the area in the 1870s and the ruins of homesteads and buildings as well as gravesites can be found near Pine Hill and Thomas Fishery. Bay whaling was conducted by Thomas Sherratt at Barrier Anchorage in the 1870s. John Thomas seems to have had a bay whaling operation in the 1860s at Thomas's Fishery; the area is composed of sandy beaches and rocky headlands to the south with low granite hills extending to the north to join the jagged Russell Range, composed of pre-cambrian quartzite.
The highest point of the park is Tower Peak, located within the Range, which reaches a height of 594 metres. The eastern boundary of the park joins the western side of Nuytsland Nature Reserve. Sand-plains that are rich in flora surround the hill areas. A wide variety of habitat exists within the park which supports a wide variety of fauna; the park is an important site for the bird life in Western Australia. It is home to over 160 species of birds including some that are restricted; some of the birds found in the park include: the western ground parrot, the Australasian bittern, Carnaby's cockatoo and Cape Barren geese. Fauna that can be found include the western brush wallaby, the southern bush rat, many small marsupial predators and a variety of reptiles and amphibians. A rare and primitive species of ant of the genus Nothomyrmecia is thought to inhabit the area. Vegetation found within the park is on young dune systems that have large communities of coastal heath with smaller systems of yate, banksia and mallee.
Species of orchid and ferns exist near Mount Ragged including a small population of the sticky-tail flower. Many walk trails can be found in the park, including the Len Otte Nature Trail, Tagon Coastal Trail, Boolenup Walk Trail and walks up both Mount Ragged and Mount Arid; the most accessible campsite is at Thomas River with conventional drive access, barbecues and water tanks. Other campsites at Mount Ragged, Poison Creek and Deal Creek are only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles. Protected areas of Western Australia
Red kangaroo
The red kangaroo is the largest of all kangaroos, the largest terrestrial mammal native to Australia, the largest extant marsupial. It is found across mainland Australia, avoiding only the more fertile areas in the south, the east coast, the northern rainforests; this species is a large kangaroo with long, pointed ears and a square shaped muzzle. They are sexually dimorphic as the males have short, red-brown fur, fading to pale buff below and on the limbs. Females are smaller than males and are blue-grey with a brown tinge, pale grey below, although arid zone females are coloured more like males, it has two forelimbs with small claws, two muscular hind-limbs, which are used for jumping, a strong tail, used to create a tripod when standing upright. The red kangaroo's legs work much like a rubber band, with the Achilles tendon stretching as the animal comes down releasing its energy to propel the animal up and forward, enabling the characteristic bouncing locomotion; the males can cover 8–9 m in one leap while reaching heights of 1.8–3 m, though the average is 1.2–1.9 m Males grow up to a head-and-body length of 1.3–1.6 m with a tail that adds a further 1.2 to the total length.
Females are smaller, with a head-and-body length of 85–105 cm and tail length of 65–85 cm. Females can weigh from 18 to 40 kg, while males weigh about twice as much at 55 to 90 kg; the average red kangaroo stands 1.5 m tall to the top of the head in upright posture. Large mature males can stand more than 1.8 m tall, with the largest confirmed one having been around 2.1 m tall and weighed 91 kg. The red kangaroo maintains its internal temperature at a point of homeostasis about 36 °C using a variety of physical and behavioural adaptations; these include having an insulating layer of fur, being less active and staying in the shade when temperatures are high, panting and licking its forelimbs. The red kangaroo's range of vision is 300°, due to the position of its eyes; the red kangaroo ranges throughout central Australia. Its range encompasses scrubland and desert habitats, it inhabits open habitats with some trees for shade. Red kangaroos are capable of conserving enough water and selecting enough fresh vegetation to survive in an arid environment.
The kangaroo's kidneys efficiently concentrate urine during summer. Red kangaroo eat green vegetation fresh grasses and forbs, can get enough when most plants look brown and dry. One study of kangaroos in Central Australia found that green grass makes up 75–95% of the diet, with Eragrostis setifolia dominating at 54%; this grass continues to be green into the dry season. Kangaroos primarily consumed this species, along with Enneapogon avanaceus, in western New South Wales where they comprised much as 21–69% of its diet according to a study. During dry times, kangaroos search for green plants by staying on open grassland and near watercourses. While grasses and forbs are preferred, red kangaroos will eat certain species of chenopods, like Bassia diacantha and Maireana pyramidata, will browse shrubs when its favoured foods are scarce. However, some perennial chenopods, such as round-leaf chenopod Kochia are avoided when abundant. At times, red kangaroos congregate in large numbers. Red kangaroos are crepuscular and nocturnal, resting in the shade during the day.
However, they sometimes move about during the day. Red kangaroos rely on small saltbushes or mulga bushes for shelter in extreme heat rather than rocky outcrops or caves. Grazing takes up most of their daily activities. Like most kangaroo species, they are sedentary, staying within a well-defined home range. However, great environmental changes can cause them to travel great distances. Kangaroos in New South Wales have weekly home ranges of 258–560 ha, with the larger areas belonging to adult males; when forage is poor and rainfall patchy, kangaroos will travel 25–30 km to more favourable feeding grounds. Another study of kangaroos in central Australia found that most of them stay close to remaining vegetation but disperse to find fresh plants after it rains; the red kangaroo is too big to be subject to significant non-human predation. They can use their robust legs and clawed feet to defend themselves from attackers with kicks and blows; however and eagles will kill and eat joeys. Joeys are thus protected in their mother's pouch.
The red kangaroo did have major predators that are now extinct. Extinct predators included the marsupial lion and the wonambi. Kangaroos are adept swimmers, flee into waterways if threatened by a predator. If pursued into the water, a kangaroo may use its forepaws to hold the predator underwater so as to drown it. Red kangaroos live in groups of 2–4 members; the most common groups are their young. Larger groups can be found in densely populated areas and females are with a male. Membership of these groups is flexible, males are not territorial, fighting only over females that come into heat. Males develop proportionately much larger arms than females. Most agonistic interactions occur between young males, which engage in ritualised fighting known as boxing, they stand up on their hind limbs and attempt to push their opponent off balance by jabbing him or locking forearms. If the fight escalates, they will begin to kick each other. Using their tail to support t
Depression (geology)
A depression in geology is a landform sunken or depressed below the surrounding area. Depressions form by various mechanisms. Erosion-related: Blowout: a depression created by wind erosion in either a vegetated sand dune ecosystem or dry soils. Glacial valley: a depression carved by erosion by a glacier. River valley: a depression carved by fluvial erosion by a river. Area of subsidence caused by the collapse of an underlying structure such as sinkholes in karst terrain. Sink: an endorheic depression containing a persistent or intermittent lake, a salt flat or dry lake, or an ephemeral lake. Collapse-related: Sinkhole: a depression formed as a result of the collapse of rocks lying above a hollow; this is common in karst regions. Kettle: a shallow, sediment-filled body of water formed by melting glacial remnants in terminal moraines. Thermokarst hollow: caused by volume loss of the ground as the result of permafrost thawing. Impact-related: Impact crater: a depression created by an impact such as a meteorite crater.
Sedimentary-related: Sedimentary basin: in sedimentology, an area thickly filled with sediment in which the weight of the sediment further depresses the floor of the basin. Structural or tectonic-related: Structural basin: a syncline-like depression. Graben or rift valley: fallen and linear depressions or basins created by rifting in a region under tensional tectonic forces. Pull-apart basin caused by transform fault. Oceanic trench: a deep linear depression on the ocean floor. Oceanic trenches are caused by subduction of oceanic crust beneath either oceanic crust or continental crust. A basin formed by an ice sheet: an area depressed by the weight of the ice sheet resulting in post-glacial rebound after the ice melts Volcanism-related: Caldera: a volcanic depression resulting from collapse following a volcanic eruption. Pit crater: a volcanic depression smaller than a caldera formed by a sinking, or caving in, of the ground surface lying over a void. Maar: a depression resulting from phreatomagmatic eruption or diatreme explosion.
Cryptodepression List of places on land with elevations below sea level
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Hamersley Range
The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the Pilbara, Western Australia. The range was named on 12 June 1861 by explorer F. T. Gregory after Edward Hamersley, a prominent promoter of his exploration expedition to the Northwest; the range runs from the Fortescue River in 460 km to the south. The range contains Western Australia's highest point, Mount Meharry, which reaches 1,249 metres AHD. There are many extensively eroded gorges, such as Wittenoom Gorge; the twenty highest peaks in Western Australia are in the Hamersley Range. Peaks in the range include Mount Bruce, Mount Nameless, Mount Reeder Nichols, Mount Samson, Mount Truchanas and Mount Tom Price. Karijini National Park, one of Australia's largest National Parks, is centred in the range; the range contains large deposits of iron ore, producing a large proportion of Australia's iron ore exports. It is predominately associated with Banded Iron Formation. Western Australia's major iron producers have mines and railways that occur along the range Rio Tinto operates several iron ore mines within the range including Mt. Tom Price, Brockman, West Angelas, Mesa A mine, Paraburdoo.
Over 100 million tonnes of iron ore is removed from the range every year. In 1999 a small range within the Hamersley was named the Hancock Range after the Hancock family who were pioneers in the area; the Hancock range is east of Karijini National Park in a region of broad valleys and peaks that rise to 1,200 metres. The Hancock Range is close to Mulga Downs Station, a property owned by the Hancock family and where Lang Hancock is buried; the traditional owners of the area that the range runs through are the Yindjibarndi peoples. Karijini National Park Ophthalmia Range Marshall, Lloyd New Iron Age in the Hamersleys in the Weekend News, Sept. 3, 1966. Powell, C. M.. C.. Late Archaean and Early Proterozoic basin formation of the Hamersley Ranges. Geological Society of Australia, Excursion guidebook 4. ISBN 0-909869-90-1
Echidna
Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. The four extant species, together with the platypus, are the only surviving members of the order Monotremata, are the only living mammals that lay eggs; the diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not related to the true anteaters of the Americas. Echidnas live in New Guinea. Echidnas evolved between 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme; this ancestor was aquatic. The echidnas are named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology, half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals spines. Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines, they are black or brown in colour. There have been several reports of albino echidnas, their eyes pink and their spines white.
They have slender snouts that function as both mouth and nose. Like the platypus, they are equipped with electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-beaked echidna has only 2,000 electroreceptors, the short-beaked echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout, they have short, strong limbs with large claws, are powerful diggers. Their claws on their hind limbs are curved backwards to help aid in digging. Echidnas have tiny toothless jaws; the echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs and the like, using its long, sticky tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to collect prey. The ears are slits on the sides of their heads that are unseen, as they are blanketed by their spines; the external ear is created by a large cartilaginous funnel, deep in the muscle. At 33 °C, the echidna possess the second lowest active body temperature of all mammals, behind the platypus; the short-beaked echidna's diet consists of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus species eat worms and insect larvae.
The tongues of long-beaked echidnas have tiny spines that help them capture their prey. They have no teeth, break down their food by grinding it between the bottoms of their mouths and their tongues. Echidnas' faeces are cylindrical in shape. Echidnas do not tolerate extreme temperatures. Echidnas are found in woodlands, hiding under vegetation, roots or piles of debris, they sometimes use the burrows of animals such as wombats. Individual echidnas have mutually overlapping territories. Despite their appearance, echidnas are capable swimmers; when swimming, they expose their snout and some of their spines, are known to journey to water in order to groom and bathe themselves. Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes; the average lifespan of an echidna in the wild is estimated around 14–16 years. When grown, a female can weigh up to 4.5 kilograms and a male can weigh up to 6 kilograms. The echidnas' sex can be inferred from their size; the reproductive organs differ, but both sexes have a single opening called a cloaca, which they use to urinate, release their faeces and to mate.
Male echidnas have non-venomous spurs on the hind feet. The neocortex makes up half compared to 80 % of a human brain. Due to their low metabolism and accompanying stress resistance, echidnas are long-lived for their size. Contrary to previous research, the echidna does enter REM sleep, but only when the ambient temperature is around 25 °C. At temperatures of 15 °C and 28 °C, REM sleep is suppressed; the female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg 22 days after mating, deposits it directly into her pouch. An egg is about 1.4 centimetres long. While hatching, the baby echidna opens the leather shell with a reptile-like egg tooth. Hatching takes place after 10 days of gestation; the mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the young, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months. Puggles will stay within their mother's den for up to a year before leaving. Male echidnas have a four-headed penis. During mating, the heads on one side "shut down" and do not grow in size.
Each time it copulates, it alternates heads in sets of two. When not in use, the penis is retracted inside a preputial sac in the cloaca; the male echidna's penis is 7 centimetres long when erect, its shaft is covered with penile spines. These may be used to induce ovulation in the female, it is a challenge to study the echidna in its natural habitat and they show no interest in mating while in captivity. Therefore, no one has seen an echidna ejaculate. There have been previous attempts, trying to force the echidna to ejaculate through the use of electrically stimulated ejaculation in order to obtain semen samples but has on
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