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Wave Rock () is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking
ocean wave In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result of the wind blowing over the water's surface. The contact distance in the direction of the wind is ...
. The "wave" is about high and around long. It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as "Hyden Rock". This hill, which is a
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 ...
inselberg An inselberg or monadnock ( ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa, a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an ...
, lies about east of the small town of Hyden and east-southeast 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 ...
, Western Australia. Twidale, C. R. (1968) ''Origin of Wave Rock, Hyden.'' Transactions of the Royal Academy of South Australia. vol. 92, pp. 115–124. Wave Rock and Hyden Rock are part of a nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park. More than 100,000 tourists visit every year.


Dam

A wall lies above Wave Rock about halfway up Hyden Rock and follows the contours of the rock surface. It collects and funnels rainwater to a storage dam. The wall and dam were constructed in December 1928 by the
Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...
for the colonist settlers of East Karlgarin District. Both were renovated in 1951 to increase water capacity for the Hyden township. Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.


Dreamtime

Wave Rock has cultural significance to
Ballardong Ballardong are an indigenous Noongar people of the south western area of Western Australia. Country The Ballardong's land encompasses an estimated . Northwards they occupy the Avon River. From the east of York they extend to Tammin, Kununopp ...
people, who call it . Local tribes believed that wave rock was a creation of the
Rainbow Serpent The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake is a common deity often seen as the Creator deity, creator God, known by numerous names in different Australian Aboriginal languages by the many List of Australian Aboriginal group names, different Aborigina ...
, and was created in her wake by dragging her swollen body over the land after she had consumed all of the water in the land. They respected this area as an icon of cultural learning; a moral from this
Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...
tale was to be remembered for life. The rock is part of a dreaming trail that extends from the south coast near Augusta to the
Great Victoria Desert The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia. History In 1875, British-born Australian explore ...
country to the north east. Other features along the trail include Mulka's Cave, Puntapin Rock, Jilakin Rock, Jitarning Rock and Dumbleyung Lake.


Geomorphology

Hyden Rock, of which Wave Rock is part, consists of 2.63 billion year-old
biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron- endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more al ...
K-feldspar Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar (endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture", because its two cleavage planes are at right angles t ...
porphyritic Porphyritic is an adjective used in geology to describe igneous rocks with a distinct difference in the size of mineral crystals, with the larger crystals known as phenocrysts. Both extrusive and intrusive rocks can be porphyritic, meaning ...
monzogranite Monzogranite is a plutonic rock that occupies the middle of the QAPF diagram, consisting of between 20–60% quartz, and of the remainder, between 35–65% alkali feldspar and the remainder plagioclase. Examples Pilgangoora belt, Pilbara c ...
that is part of the Yilgarn Craton.Qiu, Y., and N. J. McNaughton (1999) ''Source of Pb in orogenic lode-gold mineralisation: Pb isotope constraints from deep crustal rocks from the southwestern Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Australia.'' Mineralium Deposita. 34:366–381. Hyden Rock is a
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 ...
inselberg An inselberg or monadnock ( ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa, a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an ...
, which consists of three domes. The central and western domes are separated by a deep valley, which is now occupied by a reservoir. The central and eastern domes are linked by a low platform. A multistage process of landform development created these domes. The initial step in the development of Hyden Rock was the subsurface alteration by weathering of granite bedrock beneath a lateritised land surface during the
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
Period between 100 and 130 million years ago. Depending on the degree to which it was fractured by jointing, the granite bedrock underlying this surface was altered to varying depths beneath the land surface. This process formed underground "domes" of solid granite bedrock surrounded by deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated granite. Following separation of Australia and Antarctica and accompanying tilting of what became southwestern Australia, periodic erosion of the deeply weathered granite, which underlaid the surrounding land surface, exposed these buried solid bedrock domes over time as Hyden Rock.Twidale, C. R., J. A. Bourne, and J. R. Vidal Romani (2002
''Multistage Landform Development in Various Settings and at Various Scales.''
Cadernos do Laboratório Xeolóxico de Laxe. 27:55–76.
Twidale, C. R., and J. R. V. Romani (2005) ''Landforms and Geology of Granite Terrains.'' Taylor & Francis, New York, 359 pp. Wave Rock is a good example of what geomorphologists call a " flared slope". A flared slope is a concave-upward or -inward bedrock surface that is typically found around the base of inselbergs,
bornhardt A bornhardt () is a dome-shaped, steep-sided, bald rock outcropping at least in height and several hundred metres in width. They are named after Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946), a German geologist and explorer of German East Africa, who firs ...
s, and granitic boulders and also on their higher slopes. Flared slopes like Wave Rock are particularly well developed in granitic landforms of south-western and southern Australia. The flared slopes are argued to have formed by the concentrated chemical weathering around the base of an inselberg by groundwater. The chemical weathering of the bedrock by groundwater produces a concave-upward or –inward pocket of deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated bedrock within the formerly solid bedrock base of an inselberg. When the land surface, which is underlain by deeply weathered bedrock, around an inselberg is lowered by erosion, the pocket of deeply weathered disaggregated bedrock is also removed to produce a flared slope such as Wave Rock. It has also been argued that flared slopes can form during the erosion of slopes of any inselbergs. According to local
Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the South West, Western Australia, south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton, Western Aus ...
man and tour guide Michael Ward, the wall above the top of Wave Rock has caused the rock to change colour over time. He has said that in the early days of the wall, the rock was lighter yellow or cream in colour, and that the wall has helped it to become red and orange with black streaking across its face.


Nearby features

Other notable rock formations in the area include Hippos Yawn and The Humps.


In popular culture

Wave Rock hosts the nearby Wave Rock Weekender event, a music festival that has been held annually since 2006. Wave Rock features on the album artwork for Japanese Jazz-fusion band T-Square's 1987 studio album, ''
Truth Truth or verity is the Property (philosophy), property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth, 2005 In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise cor ...
''.


See also

*
List of individual rocks The following is a list of notable rocks and stones. See also * List of largest meteorites on Earth * List of longest natural arches * List of rock formations * List of rock formations that resemble human beings * List of rocks on Mars * Lists ...


References


Further reading

*


External links

*
Granite Outcrops in the Wheatbelt
– on the website of th
Central Wheatbelt Visitor Centre
– includes Wave Rock *{{Commons category-inline Rock formations of Western Australia Wheatbelt (Western Australia) Places of Noongar significance Neoarchean magmatism Western Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate