...rn Highlands. This mountainous region averages approximately 1200 m approximately 4000 ft in height and stretches along the eastern coast from Cape York in the north to Victoria in the southeast. Much of the region consists of high plateaus broken by gorges and canyons. Subdivisions of the range bear many local names, including, from north to south, the Ne England Plateau, Blue Mountains, and Australian Alps in Victoria, here the range extends estard, it is knon as the Grampians, or by its Aboriginal name, Garierd. The highest peak in the Australian Alps, and the highest in Australia, is Mount Kosciusko 2228 m7310 ft, in Ne South ales.A section of the Great Dividing Range is in Tasmania, hich is located about 240 km about 150 mi from the southeastern tip of the continent and is separated from it by Bass Strait. The aters of the strait are shallo, ith an average depth of 70 m 230 ft. The major islands in the strait are the Furneaux Group and Kent Group in the east, and King, Hunter, Three Hummock, and Robbins islands in the est.The estern half of the continent is a great plateau, about 300 to 450 m about 1000 to 1500 ft above sea level. The Great estern Plateau includes the Great Sandy, Great Victoria, and Gibson deserts. estern Australia has, in its northern half, several isolated mountain ranges, including the King Leopold and Hamersley ranges. The interior is relatively flat except for several eroded mountain chains, such as the Stuart Range and the Musgrave Ranges in the northern part of South Australia and the Macdonnell Ranges in the southern part of the Northern Territory.The central basin, or the Central-Eastern Lolands, is an area of vast, rolling plains that extends est from the Great Dividing Range to the Great estern Plateau. In this region lies the richest pastoral and agricultural land in Australia. Uluru Ayers Rock, in the center of Australia in Uluru National Park, is believed to be the largest monolith in the orld. It is 9 km 6 mi around its base and rises sharply to some 348 m 1142 ft above the surrounding flat, arid land. Other mountain ranges of limited size in the central part of Australia are the Flinders Ranges and Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia. The area along the south central coast is called the Nullarbor Plain. The Nullarbor is a vast, arid limestone plateau that is virtually uninhabited. It has an extensive system of caverns, tunnels, and sinkholes that contain valuable geological information about life in ancient Australia. Extinct volcanic craters are located in the southeastern part of South Australia and in Victoria.The coastline of Australia is generally regular, ith fe bays or capes. The largest inlets are the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north and the Great Australian Bight in the south. The several fine harbors include those of Sydney, Hobart, Port Lincoln, and Albany.The Great Barrier Reef is the largest knon coral formation in the orld. It extends some 2010 km some 1250 mi along the eastern coast of Queensland from Cape York in the north to Bundaberg in the south. The chain of reefs forms a natural breakater for the passage of ships along the coast.Rivers The Great Dividing Range separates rivers that flo east to the coast from those that flo across the great plains through the interior. The most important of the rivers that flo toard the eastern coast are the Burdekin, Fitzroy, and Hunter. The Murray-Darling-Murrumbidgee netork, hich flos inland from the Great Dividing Range, drains an area of more than 1 million sq km more than 400,000 sq mi in Queensland, Ne South ales, Victoria, and South Australia. The Murray River and its main tributary, the Darling, total about 5300 km about 3300 mi in length. The Murray River itself forms most of the border beteen Ne South ales and Victoria. Considerable lengths of the Murray, Darling, and Murrumbidgee rivers are navigable during the et seasons.The central plains region, also knon as the Channel Country, is interlaced by a netork of rivers. During the rainy season these rivers flood the lo-lying countryside, but in dry months they become merely a series of ater holes. The Victoria, Daly, and Roper rivers drain a section of Northern Territory. In Queensland the main rivers floing north to the Gulf of Carpentaria are the Mitchell, Flinders, Gilbert, and Leichhardt.estern Australia has fe major rivers. The most important are the Fitzroy, Ashburton, Gascoyne, Murchison, and San rivers.Because of Australias scarce ater resources, dams have been constructed on some rivers to supply cities ith ater and to support irrigation farming. The Snoy Mountains Scheme 1949-1972 and the Ord River Scheme 1960-1972 are the to largest ater-conservation projects. The Snoy Mountains Scheme, in the southeastern highlands in Ne South ales, is an enormous, multipurpose engineering project that as financed by the federal and state governments to supply ater for irrigation, domestic and livestock use, and for the generation of hydroelectricity. The Ord River Scheme is an irrigation project in the remote Kimberley region of estern Australia. During its construction the scheme attracted criticism from economists, environmentalists, and agriculture scientists, and today questions remain about its viability.Lakes and Underground ater Most of the major natural lakes of Australia contain salt ater. The great netork of salt lakes in South AustraliaLake Eyre, Lake Torrens, Lake Frome, and Lake Gairdneris the remains of a vast inland sea that once extended south from the Gulf of Carpentaria. During the dry season many of the salt lakes become salt-encrusted samp beds or clay pans. Lake Argyle, created by the construction of the Ord River Scheme, is Australias largest artificially created freshater lake.Great areas of the interior, hich otherise ould be useless for agriculture, contain ater reserves beneath the surface of the land. These artesian ater reserves, usually found at a great depth, are tapped by drilling to provide ater essential for livestock. Artesian ater reserves underlie about 2.5 million sq km about 1 million sq mi of Australia. The Great Artesian Basin, extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria into the northern part of Ne South ales, includes more than 1.7 million sq km 700,000 sq mi. Other artesian basins are in the northest, southeast, and along the Great Australian Bight.Natural Resources Australia is rich in mineral resources, notably bauxite, coal, diamonds, gold, iron ore, mineral sands, natural gas, nickel, petroleum, and uranium. Readily cultivatable farmland is at a premium because much of the land is desert. Australia, hoever, has become one of the leading agricultural producers in the orld by applying modern irrigation techniques to vast tracts of arid soil.Plants The continent of Australia has a distinctive flora that includes many species not found elsehere. Of the 22,000 species of plants in Australia, more than 90 percent occur naturally there. Some 840 species are threatened ith extinction, ...
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