Did you know? Australia once had volcanoes and is an ancient landmass, dating back about 4300 million years. The Earth itself is about 4600 million years old. What processes have shaped Australia? Australia’s landforms are shaped by tectonic processes such as folding, faulting and volcanic activity, along with weathering, erosion and deposition. Over millions of years, the Earth’s crust has buckled, folded and uplifted due to these processes, forming mountains, hills, valleys and coastal headlands. 13.6.1
FIGURE2 Relief map of Australia. The Great Dividing Range stretches from north of Cairns in Queensland to Mount Dandenong near Melbourne in the south.
F
C
D
E
B
120°E
130°E
140°E
150°E
5
5
10°S
10°S
Darwin
The Kimberley
4
4
Cairns
Cape Hillsborough
20°S
20°S
3
3
Brisbane
Shark Bay
a
30°S
30°S
Perth
G r e a t Australian B i g h t
Sydney
Adelaide
Canberra
2
2
Melbourne Macedon
Mt Dandenong
Lambert Conformal Conic Projection
1 : 26 000 000
40°S
40°S
1 centimetre on the map represents 260 kilometres on the ground.
Hobart
0
250 500
750
1
1
kilometres
110°E
120°E
130°E
140°E
150°E
A
B
C
D
E
F
Source: ©WorldSat International, 2017
TOPIC13 Landforms and landscapes – diversity, significance and management 305
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