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Greater Blue Mountains Area
The Greater Blue Mountains Area is a World Heritage Site located in the Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. The area was placed on the World Heritage List at the List of World Heritage Sites by year of inscription#2000 (24th session), 24th Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Cairns in 2000. Etymology When the atmospheric temperature of the region rises the essential oil produced from the eucalyptus species evaporates and disperses in the air, causing visible spectra of sunlight to scatter. The scattering causes the shorter wavelength colors (blue) to propagate more than the longer wavelength colors (red). This causes reflections from the mountains to appear bluish to human eyes, giving the mountain region its signature name, "Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Blue Mountains". Description The Greater Blue Mountains Area consists of of mostly forested landscape on a sandstone plateau, inland from the Sydney central bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamison Valley
The Jamison Valley forms part of the Coxs River canyon system in the Blue Mountains (Australia), Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. It is situated approximately 100 kilometres west of Sydney, capital of New South Wales, and a few kilometres south of Katoomba, New South Wales, Katoomba, the main town in the Blue Mountains. History Indigenous history The traditional inhabitants of the land in what is now known as the Jamison Valley are the Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal Gundungurra people who are estimated to have lived in the region for years, stretching south towards the Burragorang Valley, north of Goulburn, New South Wales, Goulburn. European history The Jamison Valley was named by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in honour of Sir John Jamison (1776-1844), a prominent landowner and physician who visited the Blue Mountains with the governor in 1815. Later, as local towns were beginning to develop, the British naturalist Charles Darwin toured the area. He stayed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nattai National Park
The Nattai National Park is a protected area located in the Macarthur and Southern Highlands regions of New South Wales, Australia. The area is situated approximately southwest of the Sydney central business district and primarily encompasses the valley of the Nattai River, which is surrounded by sandstone cliffs. Part of the Southern Highlands Shale Forest and Woodland, the park is covered in dry sclerophyll (hard-leafed) forest – mostly eucalypt, and has frequent forest fires. As of May 2024, the park has no facilities. The Nattai National Park is one of the eight protected areas that, in 2000, was inscribed to form part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains Area. The Nattai National Park is the most southern of the eight protected areas within the World Heritage Site. The national park forms part of the Great Dividing Range. The national park is bounded to the north by the Nattai State Conservation Area, the Burragorang State Conservation Area, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dingo
The dingo (either included in the species ''Canis familiaris'', or considered one of the following independent taxa: ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia. Its taxonomy, taxonomic classification is debated as indicated by the variety of scientific names presently applied in different publications. It is variously considered a form of domestic dog not warranting recognition as a subspecies, a subspecies of dog or wolf, or a full species in its own right. The dingo is a medium-sized Canis, canine that possesses a lean, hardy body adapted for speed, agility, and stamina. The dingo's three main coat colourations are light ginger or tan, black and tan, or creamy white. The skull is wedge-shaped and appears large in proportion to the body. The dingo is closely related to the New Guinea singing dog: their lineage split early from the lineage that led to today's domestic do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Fossil
A living fossil is a Deprecation, deprecated term for an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Living fossils commonly are of species-poor lineages, but they need not be. While the body plan of a living fossil remains superficially similar, it is never the same species as the remote relatives it resembles, because genetic drift would inevitably change its chromosomal structure. Living fossils exhibit punctuated equilibrium, stasis (also called "bradytely") over geologically long time scales. Popular literature may wrongly claim that a "living fossil" has undergone no significant evolution since fossil times, with practically no molecular evolution or Morphology (biology), morphological changes. Scientific investigations have repeatedly discredited such claims. The minimal superficial changes to living foss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wollemia
''Wollemia'' is a genus of coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae, endemic to Australia. It represents one of only three living genera in the family, alongside ''Araucaria'' and ''Agathis'' (being more closely related to the latter). The genus has only a single known species, ''Wollemia nobilis,'' commonly known as the Wollemi pine (though it is not a true pine) which was discovered in 1994 in a temperate rainforest wilderness area of the Wollemi National Park in New South Wales. It was growing in a remote series of narrow, steep-sided, sandstone gorges north-west of Sydney. The genus is named after the National Park. The Wollemi pine is classified as critically endangered (CR) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN's IUCN Red List, Red List, and is legally protected in Australia. After it was discovered that the trees could be successfully cloned, new trees were potted up in the Botanic Gardens of Sydney and Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan, Moun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relict (biology)
In biogeography and paleontology, a relict is a population or taxon of organisms that was more widespread or more diverse in the past. A relictual population is a population currently inhabiting a restricted area whose range was far wider during a previous geologic epoch. Similarly, a relictual taxon is a taxon (e.g. species or other lineage) which is the sole surviving representative of a formerly diverse group. Definition A relict (or relic) plant or animal is a taxon that persists as a remnant of what was once a diverse and widespread population. Relictualism occurs when a widespread habitat or range changes and a small area becomes cut off from the whole. A subset of the population is then confined to the available hospitable area, and survives there while the broader population either shrinks or evolves divergently. This phenomenon differs from endemism in that the range of the population was not always restricted to the local region. In other words, the species or group did ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about 80 km (50 mi) from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Blue Mountains in the west, and about 80 km (50 mi) from Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the Hawkesbury River in the north and north-west, to the Royal National Park and Macarthur, New South Wales, Macarthur in the south and south-west. Greater Sydney consists of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are colloquially known as "Sydneysiders". The estimated population in June 2024 was 5,557,233, which is about 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. The city's nicknames include the Emerald City and the Harbour City. There is ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swamps Of The Blue Mountains
The swamp communities of the Blue Mountains are a geographically dispersed group of ecologically-endangered peat swamp communities, spanning multiple parts of the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia. History The swamps were first listed as endangered ecological communities in 2004, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (NSW). The swamp communities are usually found at altitudes ranging between above sea level. They comprise less than or around 3% of the total heritage area of the Blue Mountains National park. It is believed that swamps such as these formed around 15,000 years ago. The Blue Mountain swamps exist within low‐lying sites on valley floors (valley swamps) and also as hanging swamps which occur on steep hillsides and around the headwaters of creeks. Varieties The swamp communities exist with different variability, and may be considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mallee (habit)
Mallee are trees or shrubs, mainly certain species of eucalypts, which grow with multiple stems springing from an underground lignotuber or xylopodium, usually to a height of no more than . The term is widely used for trees with this growth habit across southern Australia, in the states of Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, and has given rise to other uses of the term, including the ecosystems where such trees predominate, specific geographic areas within some of the states and as part of various species' names. Etymology The word is thought to originate from the word ''mali'', meaning water, in the Wemba Wemba language, an Aboriginal Australian language of southern New South Wales and Victoria. The word is also used in the closely related Woiwurrung language and other Aboriginal languages of Victoria, South Australia, and southern New South Wales. Overview The term ''mallee'' is used describe various species of trees or woody plants, mainl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short Internode (botany), internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct sunlight. Sclerophyllous plants occur in many parts of the world, but are most typical of areas with low rainfall or seasonal droughts, such as Australia, Africa, and western North and South America. They are prominent throughout Australia, parts of Flora of Argentina, Argentina, the Cerrado biogeographic region of Geography of Bolivia, Bolivia, Geography of Paraguay, Paraguay and Flora of Brazil, Brazil, and in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub, Mediterranean biomes that cover the Mediterranean Basin, California chaparral and woodlands, California, Chilean Matorral, Chile, and the Cape Province of South Africa. In the Mediterranean basin, Quercus ilex, holm oak, cork oak and olives are typical hardwood tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial planet, rocky planet or natural satellite, moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of volcanism on Venus, Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar mare, lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars. Molten basalt lava has a low viscosity due to its relatively low silica content (between 45% and 52%), resulting in rapidly moving lava flo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Height Datum
The Australian Height Datum was introduced in 1971 as the official vertical datum for Australia, and thereby serves as the Benchmark (surveying), benchmark to which all height measurements are referred. The Australian Height Datum is an amalgamation of decades of spirit levelling work conducted by numerous state and territory authorities across the country, and was corrected to align with the Mean sea-level, mean sea level observations of thirty tide gauges positioned around the entire coastline. While it remains the published vertical datum for all surveying and engineering operations performed throughout Australia, newer technologies have uncovered numerous deficiencies, offsets and distortions within the Australian Height Datum, leading to discussions about defining a new Australian vertical datum. Background The National Mapping Council (pre-1945) Prior to the creation of the Australian Height Datum, Levelling, levelling surveys were carried out by professional surveyor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
