Central Australia's inland sea Ironically, he had the location right but was about 120 million years too late. During the Cretaceous period (144 to 65 million years ago) a great inland sea stretched over one quarter of the country, inhabited by large underwater creatures and brimming with sea life.
The ancient underwater sites, at Cape Bruguieres and Flying Foam Passage, provide new evidence of Aboriginal ways of life from when the seabed was dry land, due to lower sea levels, thousands of years ago.
Some blame changes in the prehistoric climate; others point to overhunting by the first Australians, or habitat burning by humans which drastically altered the landscape. The “human-mediated” explanations depend to an extent on the climate having remained stable over the period in question.
100 million years ago sea levels were at their highest for 250 million years. About half of Australia was covered by a shallow inland sea. All of that extra water is now locked away by being frozen solid in the thick polar ice caps.
The ancient Australian seaway flooded from what is today the eastern side of the Gulf of Carpentaria and western Cape York, down through western Queensland into what is now northern NSW and across into South Australia almost to the Western Australian border.
Eromanga, Australia's furthest town from the sea, used to be at the bottom of a shallow sea. About 110 million years ago a shallow sea covered what is now arid inland Australia.
Step back to a time when Australia's red centre was flooded by a vast shallow ocean, the Eromanga Sea. While dinosaurs stalked the scattered islands that made up the Australian continent, giant marine reptiles ruled the waves.
Many natural resources were adapted to carry water by Aboriginal people. The skins of kangaroos, wallabies, possums, bandicoots and other small mammals were used because they are waterproof. Near the sea, kelp - a form of seaweed - and large shells were used to carry water.
The Central Australian landscape was once a vast ocean and home to the Endoceras, an oversized killing machine which preyed on fish species and trilobites.
Australia was glaciated several times during the Pleistocene and possibly during the Pliocene. On the Australian mainland, glaciers were restricted to only the highest elevations of the Kosciuszko massif. However, in Tasmania, a succession of glacial systems are recorded.
At least 7,100 miles (11426.34 kilometers) of Australian coastline – roughly 50% of the country's entire sandy coastline – could be threatened by 2100, a study found in March.
This drought affected most of southern Australia, including its largest cities and largest agricultural region (the Murray–Darling basin). It commenced with low rainfall conditions in late 1996 and through 1997, and worsened through particularly dry years in 2001 and 2002.
Since the 1860s there have been nine major Australian droughts. The major drought periods of 1895-1903 and 1958-68 and the major drought of 1982-83 were the most severe in terms of rainfall deficiency and their effects on primary production.
Lake Eyre, also called Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, great salt lake in central South Australia, with a total area of 4,281 square miles (11,088 square km).
My journey deep inside a mine began in my home base of Perth. The destination: Mount Isa, the deepest mine in Australia, 5,187 kilometers (3,223 miles) away.
Diamantina Fracture Zone
Within the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) the most eastern part is due south of the Naturaliste Plateau and is ~6200 m deep making it the deepest point off the Australian mainland.
Australia and much of Gondwana was in the grip of a major ice age, that took hold in the Late Carboniferous and extended well into the Permian as ice sheets advanced and retreated several times across the great southern landmass.
This drying has been ascribed to natural climate change and human modification of the environment through burning and the hunting of megafauna. Sahul, during the last ice age (beginning 30,000 years ago and peaking 20,000 years ago) was cold – around 5 degrees colder – and much drier than present.
Australia's exceptional aridity is the result of a unique combination of factors. Cold ocean currents off the west coast means there is little evaporation to form rainclouds, while the Great Dividing Range that runs down Australia's east coast prevents rain from penetrating far inland.
Prior to colonisation, the Kuku-Yalanji Peoples of the rainforest region of far north Queensland used large bailer (melon) shells or bark troughs for boiling water over a fire.
It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
Open entries into fractured rock aquifers (underground layers of water-bearing rock) are referred to as rock wells. Aboriginal clans used these rock wells for their precious water stores and protected the water from the elements and animals by covering the well with rock slabs or branches8.
Australia's only known ichthyosaur was a pursuit predator that chased after fish and squid, but may have snapped up anything that could fit in its jaws, such as baby turtles. Its front flippers helped it manoeuvre swiftly and avoid becoming dinner for other predators, such as Kronosaurus and giant sharks.
This spiral mass off the coast of the Kimberley is believed to be the world's longest animal. At three times the length of a humpback whale, the 50m siphonophore is a floating colony made up of thousands of tiny organisms known as zooids.
A blind eel, deep-sea batfishes, spider fish, and others were all discovered and revealed on a seafloor in Australia. The deep sea batfish is one of several previously unknown creatures found below the surface of the Indian Ocean near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park.