Category Archives: Features

Centre of Western Australia

The Geographic Centre of Western Australia is on Glenayle pastoral station, 970 kilometres north-east of Perth, on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert.

The closest town of any size is Wiluna, 260 kilometres south-west. The centre is east-south-east of the Glenayle Homestead and north-east of the Glenayle – Carnegie Road. The closest point on the coast from the centre is a remote beach near Port Hedland, 640 kilometres to the north-north-west. The WA/NT border is 670 kilometres due east. To the south is Esperance, 950 kilometres distant.

By any measure it is remote.

Access to the Centre from Wiluna is through Wolgawol Station to Glenayle Station on the western edge of the Little Sandy Desert/Great Victoria Desert. South of the Centre is Carnegie Station and Prenti Downs.

The location of the Centre of Western Australia is:
25° 19′ 41″ South, 122° 17′ 54″ East
-25.32806, 122.29833
51J 429383 7198541

: Surveyor Steve at the Centre of WA with a Trimble R8 RTK GNSS Rover unit.

The ‘centre’ of any piece of geography is indefinite and subject to discussion, depending on the method used to determine it. Other factors such as tectonic plate movement also need to be considered. The coordinates stated above are those provided by Geoscience Australia, converted from 1966 datum to 2020 datum.

Boab Trees

Boab trees are of the genus Adansonia. In Africa and Madagascar these trees are known as baobab. The Australian species Adansonia gregorii (named in honour of explorer Augustus Gregory) has been evolving for 190 million years. They are thought to have originated from plants washed ashore from Madagascar, although this is not universally accepted. They are now considered to be native to Western Australia.

It is sometimes claimed that the boab is the oldest living thing in Australia. But – stromatolites!

: The famous Gregory Tree near Timber Creek.

Boab trees grow to a height of 15 metres although 9-12 metres is more usual. The drop their leaves during the dry winter of northern Australia. These trees are found throughout the Kimberley, extending into the Northern Territory.

© Kim Epton 2021-2024
161 words, one photograph.

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Man in the Moon Crater

Shoemaker Crater is about 100 kilometres north-east of Wiluna.

This impact crater was formed some time between 500mya and 1.6bya, depending on which source you believe. At that time there were no plants, no animals and no fungi – only stromatolites. A very different planet from today. A 2600 metres wide asteroid hit outback Western Australia at a speed of 65,000 kilometres per hour, creating a 30 kilometres wide impact that was identified as an impact crater in 1974.

: At the centre of Shoemaker Crater.

It is estimated that the resulting explosion was the equivalent of 784 megatons (about 15 x larger than Tsar Bomba – the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated) and generated an 8.5 magnitude earthquake. The heat and thermal radiation would have destroyed any lifeforms for a 500 kilometre radius.

The crater was named after Eugene Shoemaker (1928-1997) a renowned US planetary geologist who was killed in a vehicle crash on the Tanami Track in the Northern Territory. His ashes were on the Lunar Prospector when it was deliberately crashed into Mawson Crater near the South Pole of the moon in July 1999. The International Astronomical Union then renamed the crater as Shoemaker Crater.

: Eugene Shoemaker

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Breakaways

Breakaways are a notable feature of inland Western Australia. In what is one of the oldest geographical regions on Earth, the Yilgarn Block, softer soils have gradually eroded through the repeated action of wind and water. Only those areas with a hard laterite (ironstone/granite) top have resisted this reshaping erosion.

Where the crust of these laterite layers has crumbled the hard top remains to form a ‘mesa’ while the continuing erosion of the surrounding softer soil and rock forms a steep ‘breakaway’.

The magnificent colours often seen in breakaways are a consequence of varying soil types with laterites giving the rusty reds and shales and sandstones the softer yellows and whites.

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