Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Dalhousie Springs

This a complex of active mound springs lying 250 km of Lake Eyre. Over an are of about 70 km² there are 80 active springs. Together they account for 43 % of the natural outflow from the Great Artesian Basin. Dalhousie Springs proper has large pools of warm water up to 10 m deep and 50 m long.

Flora

The surrounding thick vegetation comprises about 100 species of terrestrial and semi-aquatic species. Among them are Tea-tree, Melaleuca glomerata, a reed, Phragmites australis and a bulrush, Typha domingensis. The only plant endemic to the spring is native tobacco Nicotiana burbidgeae.

Fauna

Among the fauna are many endemic species. Three of the 6 fish species are unique to this location. All 3 are undescribed species, the Dalhousie Catfish Neosilurus sp, The Dalhouseie Hardyhead Cratocephalus dalhousiensis and the Dalhousie Goby Chlamydogobius sp. Some species of small crustaceans, a frog and a yabby may be endemic.

To have the number of endemic species it has it must have been isolated for a very long time. It is situated in the catchment of the Finke River, but it is about 10,000 years since surface water from the Finke was present here.

Sources & Further reading 

Mary E White, Running Down, Water in a Changing Land, Kangaroo Press, 2000

• Aquatic Food Webs in Turbid Arid-Zone Rivers
• Biological Duricrust
• Chenopod Shrublands
• Claypans
• Cooper Creek Floodplain
• Ecosystems
• Mound Springs
• Mulga Woodland
• Salinas
• Saltbush
• Spinifex Grasslands