Australian Alps education kit
Australian Alps Liaison Committee, November 2005
Geology and Geomorphology of the Australian Alps
The Australian Alps consist of extensive undulating plateaus and ridges surrounded by a dissected landscape of steep slopes, escarpments and deep gorges.
The plateaus are characterised by broad shallow valleys and gentle slopes rising to rounded or flattened hill tops. In NSW much of the undulating plateau landform is still intact; in Victoria there are a number of smaller isolated plateau areas dissected by deep gorges and river valleys.
"The scenery is wild and rough and grand in the extreme. In no place else in Victoria are there such dizzy precipices, such sheer bluffs, or gorges with such vertical sides. In places the river is hemmed in between rocks which leave but a 30ft waterway." (W.H. Ferguson in the Snowy Gorge, Geological Survey of Victoria Progress Report No. 11, 1899)
The upland area of the Australian Alps is underlain by marine sediments deposited 860-400 million years ago when south-eastern Australia was inundated by the sea. These rocks have been intruded by granites and folded and uplifted to many times their current height, then worn down and dissected by different forms of erosion. Rivers have carved deep valleys and gorges. Glacial and periglacial erosion and deposition have left further imprints on the landscape.
The Australian Alps have a diverse and active geological history which is reflected in a large range of rock types and structures. Their antiquity contrasts with the European Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas, which are more recent formations.
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