The Darling Fault is one of the longest and most significant faults in Australia, extending for at least 1500 km in a north–south orientation near the west coast of southern

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

. It is a major geological boundary separating the Archaean

Yilgarn Craton The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton that constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts. Zircon grains in the Jack Hills, Narryer Terrane have b ...

in the east from the younger Pinjarra Orogen and overlying

Phanerozoic The Phanerozoic Eon is the current geologic eon in the geologic time scale, and the one during which abundant animal and plant life has existed. It covers 538.8 million years to the present, and it began with the Cambrian Period, when anima ...

Perth Basin The Perth Basin is a thick, elongated sedimentary basin in Western Australia. It lies beneath the Swan Coastal Plain west of the Darling Scarp, representing the western limit of the much older Yilgarn Craton, and extends further west offshore. C ...

to the west. The fault zone is very ancient and initially formed during the

Proterozoic The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...

Eon. In the

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

area, the Darling Fault must once have coincided with the

Darling Scarp The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to th ...

, the abrupt escarpment immediately east of the city of Perth, but the scarp has since eroded eastward of the fault, leaving a formation of foothills known as the

Ridge Hill Shelf The Ridge Hill Shelf is a landform that forms part of the foothills of the Darling Scarp, a low escarpment that runs parallel with the west coast in southwest Western Australia. It was formed by coastal erosion of the scarp in the Pleistocene, ...

. The fault is located on the western edge of the Ridge Hill Shelf; a good reference point of its location is the point where the

Great Eastern Highway Great Eastern Highway is a road that links the Western Australian capital of Perth with the city of Kalgoorlie. A key route for road vehicles accessing the eastern Wheatbelt (Western Australia), Wheatbelt and the Goldfields-Esperance, Goldfie ...

passes over the current Eastern railway line in Bellevue. When Greater Perth is looked from an aerial perspective, a faint line can be seen running down the edge of the hills.

Notes

References

* Myers, J. S. (1992) Pinjarra Orogen, in Geology and Mineral Resources of Western Australia: Western Australia Geological Survey, Memoir 3, 77–119. * Geology of Western Australia Darling Range Seismic faults of Australia {{Australia-geology-stub