Major Landforms and Divisions of Australia!
Landforms in Australia.
Australia is home to some of the worlds best geographical wonders. The world's 7th largest continent shares it’s home with rocks dating back to 3000 years ago. Australian landforms are scattered are scattered all around the country. With the continent divided into 4 major landform areas. Each region is made up of smaller component landforms. Through deep seismic surveys, scientists have been able to obtain a much clearer picture of Australia's geological past. This extremely interesting information has helped scientist discover how the great continent of Australia has been formed. The continent can be broken into four major landform regions: the Coastal Plains, the Eastern Highlands, the Central Lowlands and the Western Plateau. These landform regions have been created by movements in the Earth's crust, river erosion and changes in climate and sea level. Within these major areas, there are smaller topographic regions with distinctive landforms.
Australia is home to some of the worlds best geographical wonders. The world's 7th largest continent shares it’s home with rocks dating back to 3000 years ago. Australian landforms are scattered are scattered all around the country. With the continent divided into 4 major landform areas. Each region is made up of smaller component landforms. Through deep seismic surveys, scientists have been able to obtain a much clearer picture of Australia's geological past. This extremely interesting information has helped scientist discover how the great continent of Australia has been formed. The continent can be broken into four major landform regions: the Coastal Plains, the Eastern Highlands, the Central Lowlands and the Western Plateau. These landform regions have been created by movements in the Earth's crust, river erosion and changes in climate and sea level. Within these major areas, there are smaller topographic regions with distinctive landforms.
Coastal Plains
The Coastal Plains are to the eastern edge of Australia. The Coastal plains out of all the landforms, is the most populated and dense. Being a flat and and a low-lying area on the Australian continent, this helps to develop a greater amount of species and landmass. The Coastal Plains extend from Queensland to Victoria, in which many diverse groups of animals and plants can be found in the Coastal plains with animals such as the kangaroo, platypus, wombat and many other marsupials and mammals. The Coastal Plains are also separated from the interior of the continent by mountains and the Great Dividing Range. Many landforms make up this area such as the Brisbane river, parts of the great barrier reef and many valleys and high rocky elevation.
Eastern Highlands
The Eastern Highlands, are located to the east of Australia, and are often referred to as The Great Dividing Range. They cover almost 10% of all Australia's continent. Extending three thousand five hundred kilometres long from Cape York Peninsula to Tasmania, many places along this long piece of land are quite rugged and filled with numerous valley's and gorges. This Highland, is one of the most fertile places in Australia and mainly consists of young rocks. Many of Australia's Top cities are located on the Eastern Highlands, with Landforms such as Mt. Kosciusko, Bass Strait, Murray-Darling River system and many more.
Central Lowlands
The Central Lowlands occupy one-quarter of the continental landmass. It is low-lying and featureless and is generally 200m above sea level, characterising it as extremely flat The Central Lowlands are made of old rocks and but primarily by sediments. Although the Central Lowlands is a very flat landform mountains still exist on it. As for its climate and dryness it is usually very hot and arid to semi-arid conditions. Some of the iconic land formations on the Central Lowlands are: Simpson Desert, Flinders Range and the Great Artesian Basin. The lowest landforms of the continent are found in this region, with an average height of less than 200 metres.
Western Plateau
The Western Plateau incorporates one-third of the Australian continent. The size of the Western Plateau is 2,700,000 square kilometres, and it is Australia’s largest drainage division. It is made up of a huge, stable block of ancient igneous and metaphoric rock, which is up to 3.6 billion years old. Conditions on the western plateau are quite dry with it usually being arid or semi-arid. The large Western Plateau
is generally low lying due to erosion below 500m of elevation. It includes
iconic landforms just as: Uluru, the Olgas, The Great Sandy and Victorian
desert.