(August 10, 2011 at 7:51 pm)padraic Wrote: Nonsense Min,they're just tracks from a local foot ball team on a training run.
Seriously, I'm not at all surprised, they're always finding something impressive. I understand Australia is geologically far older than many other places on earth. Eg our local mountains "The Mount Lofty Ranges" are rather low and rounded,indicating great age.Locals call them 'The Adelaide Hills'. The Himalayas one the other hand, are high and sharp,indicating a young mountain range.
Every major continent is made up from a large number of different pieces ranging widely in age. The oldest part of Australia is no older than the oldest part of any other continent. What distinguishes Australia is it is the only continent sized land mass that hasn't seen episold of major mountain building comparable to the great mountain ranges on each of the other continents within the last 150 million years or so. By luck it is not situated near the edge of the lithspheric plate it is part of, so it didn't have anything subducted underneath it to form anything like the Andes or Rockies, nor did it hit anything to form the likes of the Alps or Himalayas.
