Gosses Bluff crater - Australia

Gosses Bluff (Gosse's Bluff) is an impact crater in the southern Northern Territory, near the centre of Australia, about 175 km (109 mi) west of Alice Springs. It was formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet approximately 142.5 ± 0.8 million years ago, in the earliest Cretaceous Period, very close to the Jurassic - Cretaceous boundary. The original crater rim has been estimated at about 22 km (13.7 Mi) in diameter, but this has been eroded away. The 5 km (3 mi) diameter, 150 m (500 ft) high crater-like feature, now exposed, is interpreded as the eroded relic of the crater's central uplift. The impact origin of this topographic feature was first proposed in the 1960s, the strongest evidence coming from the abundance of shatter cones.

The site is known as Tnorala to the Western Arrernte Aboriginal people, and is a sacred place. It is now located in the Tnorala Conservation Reserve.

In the past the crater has been the target of petroleum exploration, and two abandoned exploration wells lies near its centre.

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Hamersley Range - Australia

The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the Pilbara, Western Australia. The range runs from the Fortescue River in the northeast, 460km south. The range contains Western Australia's highest point, Mount Meharry, which reaches approximately 1,249 m AHD. There are many extensively-eroded gorges, such as Wittenoom Gorge.

Karijini National Park (formerly Hamersley National Park), one of Australia's largest National Parks, is centred in the range.

The range contains large deposits of iron ore, the source of a large amount of Australia's iron. Western Australia's major iron producers have mines, communities and railways that occur along the range.

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Purnululu National Park - Australia

Purnululu National Park is a World Heritage Site in Western Australia, 2054 km northeast of Perth. The nearest major town is Kununurra to the north, or Halls Creek to the south. Access to the park by road is via Spring Creek Track, from the Great Northern Highway approximately 250 km south of Kununurra, to the track's end at the visitor centre. The track is 53 km long and is usable only in the dry season (about April 1 to December 31), and only by four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicles. Safely navigating it takes approximately 3 hours. Access by air is less demanding; helicopter flights are available, from Turkey Creek Roadhouse at Warmun, 187 km
south of Kununurra, and light aircraft, from Kununurra.

Purnululu is the name given to the sandstone area of the Bungle Bungle Range by the Kija Aboriginal people. The name means sandstone or may be a corruption of bundle grass. The range, lying fully within the park, has elevations as high as 578 metres above sea level. It is famous for the sandstone domes, unusual and visually striking with their striping in alternating orange and grey bands. The banding of the domes is due to differences in clay content and porosity of the sandstone layers: the orange bands consist of oxidised iron compounds in layers that dry out too quickly for cyanobacteria to multiply; the grey bands are composed of cyanobacteria growing on the surface of layers of sandstone where moisture accumulates.

The distinctive beehive-shaped towers are made up of sandstones and conglomerates (rocks composed mainly of pebbles and boulders and cemented together by finer material). These sedimentary formations were deposited into the Ord Basin 375 to 350 million years ago, when active faults were altering the landscape. The combined effects of wind from the Tanami Desert and rainfall over millions of years shaped the domes. A 7 km diameter circular topographic feature is clearly visible on satellite images of the Bungle Bungle Range. It is believed that this feature is the eroded remnant of a very ancient meteorite impact crater and is known as the Piccaninny impact structure.

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Lake Hillier - Australia

Lake Hillier, present in the middle island in the Recherche Archipelago, Western Australia, offers a flamboyant scenic beauty to anyone who visits it. The specialty of this lake is its unique color, which is rose pink. The color is permanent, as it does not alter when the water is taken in a container. The length of the lake is about six hundred meters. A narrow area covered by white dunes and sand is responsible for the separation of the water of the lake and that of the ocean. A British navigator discovered the lake in 1802. The reason for the lake's color is still under investigation, and so far no one has come up with a reasonable explanation. However, the most probably explanation according to some scientists is the low nutrient concentrations and different types of bacteria and algae that are responsible for the lake's pink color. The lake is one of the natural wonders of Australia.

The Pinnacles Desert - Australia

The Pinnacles is contained within Nambung National Park, near the town of Cervantes, Western Australia. Contrary to the title of this article the Pinnacles are not called "the Pinnacles desert". The Pinnacles are limestone formations. The raw material for the limestone of the Pinnacles came from seashells in an earlier epoch rich in marine life. These shells were broken down into lime rich sands which were carried inland to form high mobile dunes. The Pinnacles were formed from lime leaching from the sand and by rain cementing the lower levels of the dune into a soft limestone. Vegetation forms an acidic layer of soil and humus. A hard cap of calcrete develops above the softer limestone. Cracks in the calcrete are exploited by plant roots. The softer limestone continues to dissolve. Quartz sand fills the channels that form. Vegetation dies and winds blow away the sand covering the eroded limestone, thus revealing the Pinnacles.

The base material for the limestone came from sea shells which were broken-down into lime-rich sand. This sand was then blown inland by natural wind pattens, forming high sand dunes. Rain caused the lime to seep to the bottom of the dunes, where it stuck together and formed limestone. Small plants began growing on top of the dunes, protecting the dunes from being blown away again by the wind. This also helped to create an acidic layer of soil over the top of the dune, which further contributed to the leaching of the lime from the soil. A layer of calcrete formed over the soft limestone under the dunes. Small cracks in this hard layer allowed plants to send down deeper roots, which had the side-effect of allowing water to flow in also, gradually eroding the soft limestone beneath. This was replaced by quartz sand from the dune above. This continued until only columns of limestone that sat protected from the encroaching water remained. These columns were exposed when the vegetation on top of the dune died, allowing the wind to blow away the dune and sand between from between them.

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