Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

The Murchison River

The Murchison River was originally mostly in the Hard-Rock Gascoyne Province far inland. It enters the sea at Gantheaume Bay at Kalbarri (There is another Gantheaume River near Broome.)

Situated near Carnarvon in Western Australia, this river flows through the Victoria Plateau across a substrate of mainly Palaeozoic sandstone. The course of the river is angular because it follows the orthogonal joints at the fault lines. Early Cretaceous strata are found in the walls of the gorge, indicating that the river valley existed at the time of the marine incursion of the Cretaceous 130 Ma.

Sources & Further reading

1. Mary E White, Running Down, Water in a Changing Land, Kangaroo Press, 2000
2. Twidale, C.R. & Campbell, E.M., 2005, Australian Landforms: Understanding a Low, Flat, Arid, and Old Landscape, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd
3. Geology of the Northern Perth Basin, Western Australia - a field guide
4. Carnarvon Basin