ephemeral
Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...
Great Western Woodlands
The Great Western Woodlands is located in the southwest of Australia. The woodlands cover almost , a region larger in size than England and Wales. The boundary of the Great Western Woodlands runs from the Nullarbor Plain in the east to the West ...
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
located approximately east of the town of Hyden and about east south east of
Perth
Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
. The lake is situated within the Lake Cronin Nature Reserve.
Description
The lake is a semi-permanent freshwater lake located in goldfields close to the boundary of the eastern Wheatbelt near to where it meets Goldfields. It is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the region. Most lakes in the area are
hypersaline
A hypersaline lake is a landlocked body of water that contains significant concentrations of sodium chloride, brines, and other salts, with saline levels surpassing those of ocean water (3.5%, i.e. ).
Specific microbial species can thrive i ...
but Lake Cronin has typical readings of 185 – 1300 mg/litre
total dissolved solids
Total dissolved solids (TDS) is a measure of the dissolved solids, dissolved combined content of all inorganic compound, inorganic and organic compound, organic substances present in a liquid in molecule, molecular, ionized, or micro-granular (so ...
making its water quite fresh. The lake occupies an area of and is recognised as a nationally important wetland as is registered in the ''
Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia
A Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia (DIWA) is a list of wetlands of national importance to Australia published by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Intended to augment the list of wetlands of internatio ...
''. It is fringed by large areas of woodlands, mallee and shrublands that are more or less undisturbed but surrounded by lands cleared for agriculture, particularly to the west so that any original vegetation has been reduced to small scattered small remnants. The area's climate is semi-arid with hot summer and cool winters, but with reliable winter rainfall providing an estimated average of around . The surrounding landforms are a mixture of breakaways, woodlands, sandplains and salt lakes in valley floors which drain internally. The surrounding hills and ranges are part of a large
greenstone belt
Greenstone belts are zones of variably metamorphosed mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences with associated sedimentary rocks that occur within Archaean and Proterozoic cratons between granite and gneiss bodies.
The name comes from the green h ...
that runs from north to south and also includes isolated
granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
monoliths.
Conservation area
An area of surrounding the lake was gazetted as a formal Nature Reserve in 1980. It had been formally recognised for conservation since 1975 by the Environmental Protection Authority. The lake's wetland is surrounded by a
catchment
A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, th ...
area that is almost completely intact and is listed as a nationally important wetland.
Flora
The area surrounding Lake Cronin is particularly diverse with species of vegetation containing 24 vegetation types, including 16 species of plant that have conservation value. The area is composed of sandplain heath communities and low eucalypt woodlands and mallees with species such as '' Acacia asepala'', '' Boronia westringioides'', ''
Melaleuca uncinata
''Melaleuca uncinata'', commonly known as broombush, broom honeymyrtle or brushwood, is a plant in the paperbark family native to southern Australia. It is harvested from the wild, and grown in plantations, for broombush fencing. The Noongar nam ...
The lake is an important habitat for many species of waterbirds including;
grey teal
The grey teal (''Anas gracilis'') is a dabbling duck found in open wetlands in Australia and New Zealand.
Description
It can be identified due to the presence of a crimson coloured iris in its eyes. This crimson colour is relatively more promi ...
s,
pink-eared duck
The pink-eared duck (''Malacorhynchus membranaceus'') is a species of duck found in Australia.
Description
The pink-eared duck has a large spatulate bill like the Australasian shoveler, but is smaller at 38–40 cm length. Its brown back ...
s,
Australian shelduck
The Australian shelduck (''Tadorna tadornoides''), also known as the chestnut-breasted shelduck or mountain duck, is a shelduck, a group of large goose-like ducks part of the bird family Anatidae. The genus name ''Tadorna'' comes from Celtic ...
Gilbert's dunnart
Gilbert's dunnart (''Sminthopsis gilberti'') is a recently discovered dunnart, described in 1984. The length from snout to tail being of which the head and body are and the tail . The hind foot size is , the ear length is and with the weight ...
,
Mitchell's hopping mouse
Mitchell's hopping mouse (''Notomys mitchellii'') also known as the pankot, is the largest extant member of the genus ''Notomys'', weighing between . ''N. mitchellii'' is a bipedal rodent with large back legs, similar to a jerboa or kangaroo rat. ...
and the
western pygmy possum
The western pygmy possum (''Cercartetus concinnus''), also known as the southwestern pygmy possum or the ''mundarda'', is a small marsupial found in Australia. Genetic studies indicate its closest relative is probably the eastern pygmy possum, f ...