Impact Craters
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Impact Craters Every year the Earth is bombarded with hundreds of thousands of meteoroids. NASA estimates that on average, over forty-four tonnes of celestial material is added to our planet every single day. Most meteoroids burn up in the atmosphere and only five percent of the larger rocks […]
Tides
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Tides Nowhere can you see the influence of the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon as when you watch the tidal stream flood and ebb over reef flats, through channels and up coastal estuaries. When perigee and full moons coincide, which happens in either March or […]
Waves
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Waves Some of the world’s greatest waves crash into the southern Australian coastline. This is where the currents of the Southern Ocean oscillate around the globe, relatively unhindered by land and where waves are pushed along by the winds of the roaring forties, furious fifties and screaming sixties. the […]
Lakes
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Lakes Australia’s vast range of fascinating lake diversity, whose size, volume, pH and salinity warrant our examination for extremes. Largest of Australia’s lakes The greatest lakes in terms of size are in the interior of the continent. As you’d expect from an arid country, they are relatively dry for […]
Sand Dunes
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Sand Dunes Many publications claim that Dune 7 in Africa’s Namib Desert to be the world’s largest sand dune. It is exceptional large at 383 metres and it made entirely from sand. Other claims of enormous sand dunes usually have the dunes on existing mountains with just a veneer […]
Springs
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Springs Springs emanate when water is forced to the surface from underground storages. The largest springs are formed in the Great Artesian Basin, where sandstone layers allow water to penetrate and then saturate the porous rocks. Non-porous rock layers trap the water, and it gravitates through the sandstone […]
Earliest Life
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Earliest Life In 1980 West Australian geologist, Malcolm Walter was working near disused mines around Marble Bar when he discovered evidence of ancient stromatolites in a formation of rocks, known as barite. When the results of dating came back at 3.49 billion years old, Walter realised that he been […]
Deserts
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Deserts The Oxford dictionary defines deserts as waterless tracts of land with little or no vegetation and typically covered with sand. This definition also extends to polar deserts which often get ranked as the largest in the world. Of the many types of deserts, Australia has a variety, from […]
Coastal Cliffs
Coastal Cliffs The continent and Islands of Australia have some incredible sea cliffs. The most dramatic cliff lines tend to be limestone escarpments, sandstone or volcanic plugs. Longest cliff Lines The longest cliff lines in Australia belong to the Bunda Cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. They extend for 160 kilometres from Eucla […]
Cave
GEOGRAPHIC EXTREMES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN RECORDS Caves On a world scale, Australia isn’t endowed with the plethora of caves that can be found on other continents. North America and South-east Asia have a far greater diversity of cave systems than Australia. Spain, France and Germany have extensive cave systems renowned for their prehistoric art […]