Territory Stories

Arafura swamp water resources study

Details:

Title

Arafura swamp water resources study

Creator

Williams, D.; Chudleigh, I.; Jolly, P.

Collection

E-Publications; E-Books; PublicationNT; Report ; 45/2003

Date

2003

Description

Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).

Notes

Date:2003

Language

English

Publisher name

Dept. of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment

Place of publication

Darwin

Series

Report ; 45/2003

File type

application/pdf.

Copyright owner

Check within Publication or with content Publisher.

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/229247

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/673198

Page content

8 Geology The Arafura Swamp formed around 5-6000 years ago after sea levels became stable after they had risen for about 12 thousand years. Since then sea levels have fallen slightly to their present level (refer to Figure 5). Around 5,000 years ago the Arafura Swamp was a marine swamp. When sea levels fell and stabilised the freshwater swamp was formed. The swamp formed in a large shallow basin on the Raiwalla Shale. Up to 20 metres of marine clays has been deposited on the shale. Up to 2 metres of freshwater alluvial material has been deposited on the clay (refer to Figure 6). Northern Australia Sea Level Curve -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 -18 -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 thousand years before present R el at iv e Se a Le ve l ( m et re s) Figure 5: Northern Australia Sea Levels Relative to Todays Level (ie 0 metres Relative Sea Level) Figure 6: Cross Section of Arafura Swamp (for location refer to Figure 8)