Friday, August 8, 2014

Purnululu National Park In Australia

Purnululu National Park is a national park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2003.

Location
Aerial view of the domes and a canyon.
It is located in north east of Western Australia. The nearest major town is Kununurra to the north, or Halls Creek to the south.

Purnululu is the name given to the sandstone area of the Bungle Bungle Range by the Kija Aboriginal people. The name means sandstone or may be a cordon of bundle grass. The range, lying fully within the park, has elevations as high as 578 metres above sea level. It is famous for the sandstone domes, unusual and visually striking with their striping in alternating orange and grey bands. The banding of the domes is due to differences in clay content and porosity of the sandstone layers: the orange bands consist of oxidised iron compounds in layers that dry out too quickly for cyanobacteria to multiply; the grey bands are composed of cyanobacteria growing on the surface of layers of sandstone where moisture accumulates.
http://ewikipedia.org/wiki/Purnululu_National_Park